


Always Crashing in the Same Car

by a_silver_sun



Series: The Time Traveler of Hell's Kitchen [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Childhood Trauma, Disability, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Nudity, Public Nudity, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 57,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9664298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_silver_sun/pseuds/a_silver_sun
Summary: AU in which Matt Murdock suffers from an affliction which causes him to involuntarily time travel. Time Traveler's Wife style.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the Daredevil Kinkmeme http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/8423.html?thread=16700647#cmt16700647 which asked for a Matt/Foggy fic with Matt as the time traveler.  
> I've make some minor spelling and grammar changes to the text here, but they shouldn't be too noticable.
> 
> You don't have to have read the Audrey Niffenegger novel The Time Traveler's Wife to understand this fic, I've really only borrowed that story's involuntary (and naked) time travel mechanics.
> 
> The title comes from a David Bowie song.
> 
>  

*  
Matt’s standing on the other side of the street, hanging back and staying out of the way before the chaos starts. He doesn’t want to be here. Honestly, he would never have chosen to come here—this moment especially, but it it’s not like it matters, because he doesn’t get a say in these things. And now he’s stuck here, with his feet firmly rooted to the sidewalk like a post. He can’t move a single goddamn muscle, no matter how much he wants to, and he does not want to be here. Unceremoniously dumped in this little pocket of space-time yet again (and again and again) and he hates it. He never asked for this.

By now the tableau before him is a well-worn groove. The needle drops down. The record skips. The song begins again. “Truck,” he mutters under his breath, and truck tires screech in the ugly, awful way they always do. “Cue old man,” and then the boom crunch of impact, followed by the clattering of steel drums as they cascade off the back of the truck and spill down into the street. God, he wishes he were anywhere else. Anywhere in the world. Studying with Foggy, like he’s supposed to be, had the universe made any kind of sense. But it doesn’t, so he’s not.

“Oh my god,” a man somewhere to his left says, panic clear in his voice. “What happened. Did you see what happened?”

Matt tugs at the ill-fitting clothes he’d pilfered from someone’s rooftop clothesline. (First order of business when unstuck in time: find something to wear.) “No,” he answers honestly.

“Oh,” the guy says, sounding a little disappointed.

Matt breathes out hard through his nose, shrugs and says to the guy, “truck ran the light, nearly hit someone. That kid out there, the one on the ground? Saved the man’s life.” He says it dispassionately, like it’s nothing more than someone else's story. Like it’s not some raw and festering mass of pain still burning deep down in his very guts.

“Holy shit,” the guy says. He sounds like maybe he was the one hit by a truck. Matt shrugs. So much for dispassionate.

“Yeah,” he says, as he licks his lips. “You’ll probably read about it in the paper.” He swallows. “Probably soon.”

After a while Matt loses track of the guy, and honestly, he doesn’t care. There’s a lot of chaos and commotion that goes along with an accident like this, and he doesn’t care enough to take all that in. The only thing he does care about is this: his dad is out there right now, less than fifty feet in front of him, and he could… he could run out there, he could tell him, he could tell his dad how… and right now he could go and touch him, throw his arms around him tight, too tight and never, ever let go of him, because… but no. He doesn’t do that. He’s been here dozens of times now, and he’s never done it, not even once.

“Hey,” a voice says. It’s his voice, his own voice coming from somewhere outside his head. “Hey, come here,” the voice says, and it’s as familiar and comforting as a warm blanket or his favorite sweater. He touches the back of Matt’s hand, at first just to let him know he’s there, but also to telegraph his intention. They buoy each other. They just... stand there holding onto each other for dear life, but it's okay, it's good. He’s not really sure which one initiated it, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s him, it’s just him.  


“I hate that we keep coming here,” Matt says. His voice sticks in his throat a little, and he has to blink away hot tears. Otherwise they won’t stop falling.  


“You’d think the first time was traumatizing enough.”

Matt huffs out a bitter laugh, because he wasn’t expecting that, like he can just joke about this stuff. Though maybe that bodes well for his mental health someday. He hopes so, anyway.

“Come on. Let me buy me a beer,” Other Matt say. “I know a place you like."

*

Matt-from-ten-years-from-now takes him to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian place he says gets demolished in the next few years, knocked down and replaced with some kind of cookie cutter chain drug store.  “The neighborhood goes through some weird growing pains.” The way he says it makes Matt think it’s some kind of understatement, but he doesn’t elaborate any further, and Matt doesn’t push. He doesn’t have a hard and fast rule against talking about future goings-on per se, he’s just always tended to avoid it. He shrugs. If I say so.

“Hm. I can’t tell if you two are related or not,” says their server, who has materialized by their table. “Let me guess, brothers?” She sounds young, Matt’s age maybe.

“Good guess,” Matt and ten-years-from-now-Matt both say.

She laughs, and slaps down a couple of laminated menus. “I’m Katie,” she says, tapping at something plastic on her lapel. “I’ll let you guys have a couple minutes to decide.”

She turns to go, so Matt calls out for her to wait. When she turns back to face the table, he says, “do you… would you happen to have… um.”

“--A Braille menu,” ten-years-from-now-Matt says. “My… brother and I, we both…”

“Oh, shit,” Katie mutters under her breath, and Matt tries to keep a neutral expression. She straightens up and pretends she didn’t just react the way she did. “I’ll be right back,” she says, a little too brightly.

Matt raises his eyebrow.

“Crisis averted,” she calls from the server’s station. She rushes over, and sets down the new menu in the wide, open neutral space of the table’s center.

“I don’t know about a crisis,” Matt says, “but thank you.”

“Sure,” she says again, with entirely too much sunshine. “Sorry it’s just the one menu.”

“It’s fine,” ten-years-from-now-Matt says.

Matt pushes the menu across the table. “Age before beauty.”

“Asshole,” Other Matt says warmly.

They end up picking out the same kind of beer and the same pasta dish. Katie seems to find this a lot more amusing than it probably is.

“If there wasn’t such an obvious difference in age, I’d say you guys were twins.”

“Stranger things have happened,” ten-years-from-now-Matt says.

Matt hums in agreement.

Katie evaporates from their table like early morning dew, and then it’s just the two of them. Just Matt. Matt squared. He thinks about the dozen or so versions of himself out there right now, milling about in the aftermath of the accident that forever changed the course of his life. How they usually don’t seek out and talk to one another whenever they’re sucked back here. How they probably should. Matt’s almost afraid to ask what made this time different.

“Hey,” ten-years-from-now-Matt says.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Hm. Okay. How’s school.”

How’s school. Yeah, okay. Matt’s pretty sure he’s really asking about Foggy.

He can’t stop the smile that takes over his entire face when he thinks about Foggy. “It’s good. Different.” Because Foggy’s the best, and Matt didn’t know people could form such easy friendships the way they have. Foggy Nelson is and continues to be an education.

“Does…” He shouldn’t ask. “Does he ever find out?” Matt wants to unstick that question the second it’s out of his mouth, send it back to a time where it doesn’t get asked.  
Matt-from-ten-years-from-now is quiet for a long time. His breathing and heart rate stay normal, so Matt’s not sure what to expect. He picks at his fingernails as the void between them grows and grows. 

“Yeah,” he says after a small while, and Matt’s surprised how fond he sounds. His voice is thick with it. Matt sniffs, and he's wiping his sleeve across a wet nose before he realizes he’s doing it. “There’s been some… rough spots, but it’s good. We’re good.” Matt’s only known Foggy for a few months, but knowing that they stay such great friends warms Matt in ways he never knew he needed.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Matt says, trying his best to keep his voice steady. Foggy doesn’t leave. Knows exactly what kind of perversion of nature he is, between the fucked-up senses and the time traveling, and he doesn’t leave? Matt’s not sure he knows what to make of it.

Matt can’t help but smile as he digs into his pasta fra diavolo. This encounter with a future self so far is going much better than he had anticipated. Less fraught. It’s… nice. It’s a nice change of pace. “Maturity suits me, I think,” Matt says after mulling over it while he chews, because that’s what this has to be. The reflection of the person he’ll one day grow into is comfortable enough in his own skin for this sort of relaxed candor, and maybe that’s what makes this time different. He breathes out, because it’s a comfort to know that, too.

Other Matt laughs a little through his nose. Half amused, half curious. “I don’t know if maturity is the right answer.”

He presses his mouth into a flat line. “Do I have the wrong impression?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I mean, I remember what it was like,” to sit there, he doesn’t say. To think and worry and wonder about the future. If I do good. If I matter. If I make a difference. “But… you know. I’m still me.”

Yeah. He does, of course he does, because he is. “I want to believe I’m going about everything the right way,” through normal means, he leaves unsaid. Sometimes though, he worries his past will catch up with him; make decisions for him he doesn’t want to make. It was brief, they hadn't spoken more than two words, but last week he’d encountered a Matt in their dorm room about ten years older who…

“My face was pretty beat up. You were… a little freaked out.”

“Yeah,” Matt says closing his eyes. He rubs at them before opening them again. It surprises him sometimes that even now, even after all this time, he still feels fatigue there. “I'm not exactly buying the whole ‘Occupational hazard of the one-two punch of blind and naked time travel.’”

Ten-years-from-now-Matt has absolutely nothing to say to that.

‘Please tell me that I really am a lawyer, at least. That I’m--” On the right path, heading the right direction.

“…yes.” There’s a ‘but’ there. Dammit. He doesn’t want to know.

Matt pushes his plate away. He’s lost his appetite.

He rubs at his face and eyes some more. The first hints of a migraine start to web across his brain, and he knows it’s time.

“Pretty sure my ride’s almost here,” Matt says, keeping his voice low.

Any ‘goodbyes’ or ‘see you laters’ would be pointless, so Matt just raises his hand to catch Katie’s attention.

“Can you show me to the men’s room?” he asks as soon as she arrives table-side. He finds the crook of her arm easily enough as she guides him toward the restrooms. “Thanks,” he says. His voice sounds as unsteady to his own ears as his whole body feels. The last few moments of unstuck time are always the worst. The world becomes shaky and unstable, and his fucked-up senses have a hard time parsing any of it. The entire world sounds like a roaring ocean, and with it his headache deepens and spreads like thin and cracking ice. He’s sweating and he’s not sure he’s going to make it in time.

Katie must notice his distress, because she offers a gentle, “come on,” and picks up the pace, weaving around chairs and tables and customers and wait staff as they hurry toward the restrooms. He tries not to trip over his own feet as they go, but his legs aren’t cooperating as they start to feel less and less substantial.

He tries for a winning smile as an apology for all the trouble, but he’s sure he misses the mark.

“Hopefully it’s not something you ate,” Katie offers with a small pat to his elbow.

The best he can manage is a shake of his head in the negative.

“I’ll bring some water to your seat. If you want,” she says. She squeezes his arm, then gives the bathroom door a quick slap-slap to indicate where it is. He pushes through it, and slams bodily into a wall. Legs skitter out from under him, and he flails for the sink before hitting the floor.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Goddammit, breathe. This isn’t anything new, it happens this way every single time, but it’s always so much worse than he remembers. Nothing exists but the ocean in his brain, and he’s drowning in it. Pressure in and around his body builds and builds and builds until it feels like the entire world is pressing down on him, and it’s too heavy, it’s too much, he’s going to explode, he’s going to—

His ears pop, and for a long moment, it’s quiet, just quiet. Then sound trickles back into his awareness; the buzzing of crickets, the hum of sodium lights, the hiss of a startled cat as it scurries off somewhere to hide.

He huffs out a laugh, because he’s behind the bushes just outside their building. And he needs to get inside, find his dorm room, and do so without anyone else noticing. All while naked.

The Matt he had lunch with today suggested Foggy knows all about his problem with unstuck time, and maybe it would be better to bring him in on that sooner rather than later. It would make his life a whole lot easier, that’s for sure. He doesn’t think Foggy would ever try to use him, but you never know. There’s a reason he doesn’t tell people. He feels his way along the edge of the building and does his best to avoid tripping on any roots or brush. Maybe a duffle for spare clothes back here would be a good idea, though his returns have historically tended to be too random for that to be very practical. He’s going to develop a reputation for streaking across campus if this keeps up. And a recent near miss with Foggy had been bad enough. Matt had found his clothes in time, but he knew he wasn’t fooling anybody. Least of all Foggy. Disheveled, he’d called him, when he found Matt in the library hastily buttoning his shirt. Like a drowned puppy, Murdock. Jesus.

Matt stops, and takes a second to breathe. There’s a stillness to the air that’s unique to the small hours of the morning, like the world’s just holding its breath. Then the sun breaks the horizon, and everything starts again. He likes this time of day best. Plus, it’s quieter, easier to navigate. And there aren’t as many people around to accidentally flash, which is always a bonus.

Up ahead, there’s an unlocked window he can force open enough to shimmy into, and when he does, his fall to the floor isn’t anywhere near as graceful as he would have liked. Still. It’s better than risking exposure outside.

He stands, gets up slowly and deliberately, and as he does he opens up his focus a little more to get a sharper sense of the room he's in, and maybe find something to cover up with. He’s in one of the offices, he thinks. There’s a paper bag sitting innocuously on the floor, tucked under the desk like it’s nothing more than trash, and at first its presence utterly confuses him. It smells like… well, it smells like him. He deepens his focus, and yeah. Inside the bag are the clothes he’d left behind. He tries not to think too much about the implications of that. Instead, he quickly dresses, throws on his glasses, and unfolds his cane. Then he crumples up the paper bag, and tosses it into the wastepaper basket behind him as he slips out the door. Nothing but net.

*


	2. Chapter 2

*

“What the hell time is it,” Foggy mutters from under the covers when Matt sneaks back into their room. He hadn't actually woken him up, judging from his heart rate and body temperate, but he wasn’t about to mention that out loud, God no.  


He makes some apologetic noises as he settles in, propping his cane by the door and setting his glasses on his desk.  


“Look at you. Three in the damn a.m., Murdock, Jesus. Why are you such a stud. Enlighten a fella, would ya?”  


Matt laughs, because Foggy’s investment in Matt’s (mostly fictional) sexual conquests is a little weird, if endearing. Or creepy. It might be creepy.  He’s not sure he knows the difference.  


“Do I know her?” Foggy sits up and snaps his fingers at Matt as Matt sits on his bed and pulls off his sneakers. “Let me guess, Debbie?” From a party last week. Foggy said she was hot, but Matt can only assume he wasn’t talking about her body temperature, which, admittedly, elevated a tiny bit whenever Matt spoke to her. They were flirting and she was into it. Maybe that’s what ‘hot’ looks like. “Dammit. Every. Single. Time with you, it’s uncanny. Also? Entirely unfair.”  


“No, no,” Matt says, laughing. Sobering a little he adds, “nothing like that.”  


Foggy makes a snorting noise that Matt can only describe as incredulous.  


“Okay, Katie. Her name was Katie.”  


“Ha! I knew it! Actually, no I don’t. I don’t know a Katie. How do you know a Katie.”  


“Met her today, actually.”  


Foggy’s moving his arms, gesturing at himself, Matt supposes. “This is me with my jaw on the floor.” He’s not even a little bit slack jawed. Matt has to hide his smile under a yawn, but, it isn’t a lie. Not entirely. The yawn gets away from him a bit. “I think I hate you.”  


“You love me.”  


“Yeah, I don’t think I do,” but he says it with so much affection, Matt doesn’t believe him for a second.  


He lets himself fall backward on his bed, head hitting the pillow even though he’s still wearing all his clothes. He’s kind of floaty, and he thinks maybe taking a scalding hot shower to wash away The Car Crash, and Matt-plural might be a good idea, but he also thinks drifting off right here, disheveled clothing and all, might be an even better one. He loses the thread of whatever Foggy’s still rattling on about, and dreams of his father. He dreams of his father in the ring, face slack and fists curled tight. He turns his body, and then the boxing ring is a courtroom. The ring is a courtroom and now Matt’s the boxer, and he’s standing in the same spot his father stood, with the Battlin’ Jack Murdock robe draped over his shoulders like a cape. Like Superman’s cape. He holds his head down, and his fists hang from limp arms like they’re made of string. His face is hot and swollen, and warm blood sluices off him like he’s standing in the rain. He starts awake when a voice from somewhere in the back of his mind whispers, “is this really how it’s supposed to be?”  


*  
“Hey, Earth to Matty,” Foggy sing-songs. They’d decided it was too gorgeous a day to spend it cooped up indoors, so he and Foggy gathered up all their books and trudged out to a spot somewhere on the sprawling lawn not too far from their room. Matt had wanted to smell the fresh cut grass on the light afternoon breeze, hear the leaves rustle on their branches, feel the warm sun on his face, but he’s not doing any of those things because Matt’s lost somewhere, just completely spaced out. Sometimes it takes a little time after traveling to find his sea legs again. Temporal jet lag, or something.  


“Yeah, sorry,” he says. “Can you repeat that last part?” Concentration’s shot all to hell, but he’s trying, he really is, because this is important. “Don’t be like me,” his dad had said. “Use those brains ‘a yours, not your fists like your ol’ man.” And Matt knows, no matter how far away it might seem, he knows he succeeds, because he’s seen the proof of it for himself. It’s the only reason he’s able to buckle down and keep working. Because he has to, because it’s what his dad wanted him to do.  


“All right,” Foggy says after a while, probably after deciding he’d finally had enough of Matt acting like a complete space cadet. He stands up and makes an exaggerated show of brushing himself off, for whose benefit, Matt can only guess. Still, he definitely appreciates Foggy’s tendency towards the dramatic, even if he isn’t exactly able to say anything to him about it. “I,” he announces grandly, “know just the thing.”  


Laughing, Matt asks, “What? What is it? And don’t say ‘you’ll see,’ ‘cause… you know.” He reaches out, and Foggy pulls him up to standing.  
Foggy scoffs. “Come on. When do I-- Actually, no. Don’t answer that.”  


“All the time, you say stuff like that all the time,” and Matt should probably feel bad about teasing Foggy like this, but, screw it. A little ribbing never hurt anyone.  


“I can’t believe you’re busting my ass over a figure of speech.” Foggy mutters. When he stops short, Matt almost avoids bumping into him. Almost. “Wait. You are just busting my ass, right?”  


“Yeah, Fog. It’s no big deal. Most people don’t even notice when they do it.” It always throws people off when Matt does it, too, which… well, what can ya do.  


Later, after they’re back and settled in their room, Matt’s sprawled out on the floor with his head nestled comfortably on one of Foggy’s thighs.  


“Dude--!” Foggy says, which, for some reason he finds extremely hilarious. Matt cannot stop laughing. “This? Is awesome. I can’t believe I got you to loosen up enough to agree to this.”  
   


‘This’ being a little bit of… herbal medicine. Matt had initially balked at the suggestion, but Foggy had successfully argued his case. Which, shouldn’t have come as any great surprise, if Matt’s honest with himself.  
   


It’s a testament to how loose and comfortable he’s feeling, because the only thing he wants right now in the whole entire world is to know his very best friend’s opinion on Something Really Important. “Hey, Fog. Hey. Do you believe in… Hm. Okay, so, let’s say some scientist somewhere invents a time machine.”  
   
“Great Scott!” Foggy intones, tapping Matt’s wrist with the back of his hand. They have a nice, easy rhythm going. Hit. Exhale. Pass.  
   
“Right, like that.”  
   
“So glad you know that one. Movie references are pretty hit-and-miss with you.”  
   
“That one’s kind of a famous one, Fog.”  
   
Matt repeats the hand tapping gesture for Foggy, which for some reason makes Foggy bark with laughter. Then: “Okay. So. A Time machine?  As the resourceful and adventurous young men that we are, I say we go and hunt down said old, wild-haired scientist dude, and convince him to take us on the most epic journey across all of space and time so that we may stomp all over history as if it were our own personal playground! Imagine it, Matt,” and Foggy’s taken to gesturing grandly, “we could see anything we wanted. Take in an original Shakespeare play! Or, or witness the signing of the Declaration! I mean, we could meet King Arthur if we wanted to, right? How awesome would that be! Oh, except no,” Foggy says, trailing off a little. With almost comical alarm, he adds, “Wait. He was real, right?”  
   
Matt laughs. “I think so, maybe, but that’s not really what I’m--”  
   
“Nah, I feel ya. You’re saying we’d have to be super careful about it, right? Like, if we accidentally ran into our future selves? Kaboom! Universe-ending paradox. So, that would kinda suck. Not to mention the whole, you know, butterfly thing.”  
   
“Butterfly thing?”  
   
“Yeah. You know. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and causes a tornado on the other side of the world, or whatever.”  
   
“Unintended consequences.”  
   
“Right, I mean, take you, for example. What if you never--”  
   
Matt wraps his hand around Foggy’s wrist and gives it a light squeeze as a warning. _Please don’t finish that sentence._  
   
“Shit, Matt. I swear I wasn’t trying to be an asshole.”  
   
“No, I know. I’m pretty sure I walked right into that with this whole thing. Don’t worry about it. Just… what I’m wondering about, is… if,” he pauses here, because he’s not sure if he can articulate the entirety of what he’s really asking. “Hm. Okay. So, if you can just get into a machine and go to whatever time you wanted, doesn’t that kind of imply that all of history is already written? That the past and the future already exist, and exists simultaneously? So, what I worry about… I mean, what I wonder about is the concept of free will. I believe that it exists, I was raised to believe it does, that God gives us the ability and freedom to make our own choices in life, but you know. Sometimes I wonder.”  
   
“Dude,” and the way Foggy stretches out the word is the best thing Matt’s ever heard. Ever. Dude. Duuude. “You have put some thought into this.”  
   
Matt breathes out a small laugh and rubs at the back of his head. “Probably I should be having this conversation with my priest instead of my stoner roommate.”  
   
“Not saying you’re wrong about that, buddy.” Foggy pulls his arm away from where it’s been draped over Matt’s side so he can pass his hand over his head. “I mean, whoosh. Why worry about it, though. That’s what I want to know. Maybe we do actually have free will, or maybe it’s all an illusion. Fuck it if I know. Turns out, though? I don’t actually give a flying fig.”  
   
“You don’t care? At all?” Matt’s kind of stunned. “You’re going to be a lawyer, Foggy, don’t you think knowing that kind of truth could, I don’t know, maybe have some significant legal implications?”  
   
 “Aw, dude, is that what this about? Jesus.” Foggy taps Matt on the head to indicate he’s getting up. Matt groans, but complies, bringing his legs up and moving them into a loose lotus pose. He’s killed the mood. Foggy’s packing up, pulling out a shoe box from under his bed and stashing away his stuff.   
   
“Fog--” I’m sorry.  
   
When Foggy comes back to sit next to him, he throws an arm around his shoulders in a loose hug. “Buddy. I cannot believe you’re having doubts about legal justice. You.”  
   
“I’m not, though! At least I don’t think I am.”  
   
“Good, I mean, c’mon. As a nine-year-old, your hero was a Supreme Court Justice. Which, by the way? Is super nerdy.” Foggy pauses, and exaggerates scratching at the hair covering his chin. “Hm. So who’d be a more normal Matt Murdock hero. Your dad was a boxer, right? So, hows about Ali.”  
   
Matt laughs a little. “Sure. They don’t call him The Greatest for nothing. But I would just say my dad’s my hero.”  
   
Next to him, Foggy’s body temperature spikes, like he’s embarrassed for him. He’s pulled his arm away, anyway, and now they’re just sitting quietly, pressed together shoulder to shoulder. He thinks Foggy’s going to tell him that he’s being stupid. That it’s stupid to idolize his father just because the man is d… Matt opens his mouth to at least try to minimize the damage, but shuts it when he notices that distinct tang of salt in the air. “Oh, man,” Foggy says, sounding as if Matt had just delivered him a knockout punch. “Way to bowl over a guy.”  
   
“Sorry.”  
   
“No, don’t be. It’s good. We’re good. Really running the gamut tonight, though. Um. What were we talking about again?”  
   
“I think it was Marshall.”  
   
“Oh of course, because that’s all you ever talk about.”  
   
Matt laughs. “That’s not true.”  
   
“Well, what would he say?”  
   
“My dad, or Justice Marshall.”  
   
“Matt,” Foggy says, almost as a whine. “Both. Either one.”  
   
“Do the right thing,” Matt says immediately. “The only thing that matters is doing the right thing, even if it’s difficult. Especially if it is,” and he’s pretty sure both men would agree with him on that.  
   
*  
   
When Matt was a kid, there was a brief time not long after the accident where sometimes he had a problem with blinking in and out of time. It wouldn’t last very long, seconds at most, but it happened often enough that it was definitely an issue. The Sisters at St. Agnes didn’t understand what was really going on with him. They couldn’t of course, they just suspected the troubled young blind kid of stripping off all his clothes in odd and random places around the orphanage and at equally odd and random hours. They’d catch him sometimes scurrying back to his room in the middle of the night, or hunting around for his wayward clothing in some off-limits area of the grounds. No amount of discipline seemed to stem the behavior, and Matt was disciplined a lot.  
   
Those blink-of-an-eye trips eventually stopped somewhere around the onset of puberty, leaving him with the somewhat more stable shifts he knows and loves today. He’d somehow convinced himself he was done dealing with those fleeting quick-in-quick-out trips right up until the moment he finds himself on the other side of the equation.  
   
“Foggy! Fog-gy!” Matt yells, and Foggy bursts into the men’s room like he’s here to put out a fire. “Get some of my clothes, go quick!”  
   
“Holy shit! Should I go get someone--”  
   
“No! Just get some clothes, please, Foggy!”  
   
“Okay, yeah. I’m on it,” and Foggy explodes out the door the same way he came in, like a man on a mission.  
   
“Shh. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe now, you’re with me.”  
   
“Dad?” little Matt sobs, and the sound of it is a sucker punch to the gut. As he sits on the cold tiled bathroom floor, he tries to level out his breathing, but he can’t, he can’t because he doesn’t remember this, he doesn’t remember… and he’s on the ground, or his dad is, he can’t tell the difference, and he doesn’t remember…  
   
“Shit, shit,” he mutters because he is not crying. Then: “I’m here, I’m here, Matty.” It’s a lie, but it’s only a lie by omission. It doesn’t matter though because the whole thing is over before it even began; one moment Matt’s running his fingers through his ten-year-old self’s hair, and then the next there’s a great cold nothing left pooling in his lap. A loud pop, and then, nothing. Nothing at all. Like it never even happened.  
   
Foggy bursts through the men’s room door again, winded from running, and it’s all Matt can do to keep from rushing up into his friend’s arms and sobbing.  
   
“Where’s the kid?” he asks, utterly baffled. “…I got the clothes, like you asked…”  
   
“Home,” Matt says, trying his best to keep his voice level, even though he knows full well that St. Agnes was never anyone’s idea of home. “He went home.”  
   
“…You okay?”  
   
Poor Foggy.  
   
“Yeah,” he lies, or maybe it’s not a lie, maybe instead it’s a promise. It’ll be true for him one day. One day he’ll be okay.  
   
*  
 


	3. Chapter 3

*  
   
Matt’s hand presses into some kind of syrupy residue as he pushes himself up to standing, and the foul smell of nearby garbage is absolutely overwhelming. He tries not to gag on it, has to actively block out the stench from his stupidly sensitive sense of smell just to get any bearing on his surroundings. Shifting his focus more on sound, he’s able to pick up some minor police activity nearby; a radio or two, an empty cop car. And somewhere above it all is _Matt._  
   
_“Go into the alleyway behind you. Hurry. Brett’s made you.”_  
   
“Brett?”  
   
_“Mahoney. A cop. I… we trust him.”_  
   
Matt does as he’s instructed, slinking into the alley only all too aware of his nakedness. He might not know where he is along the timeline, but he is pretty sure that whenever he’s landed this time, it’s well into the night. It has to be, because while the air is hot and muggy, there’s no sun blazing down on him from overhead. Not being out in broad daylight is definitely a blessing though, and the sooner he finds cover the better.

He easily hauls himself up a rusted and creaky fire escape, and scrambles to the third story where there are three bathing suits and a towel draped over the metal railing, ostensibly drying in the humid summer air. He ignores the two girls’ one-piece suits, and pulls down the towel and a pair of still damp swim trunks. “Thanks for letting me borrow these,” he mutters in the direction of the apartment window. He lets himself drop down into the alleyway below, and dresses in time for Mahoney’s arrival. He drapes the towel over his shoulders and wraps it tightly around himself. 

“I see you back there. Come on out before we have ourselves a problem.” Mahoney moves like molasses toward him, arms extended and gun drawn. Matt relaxes his stance so he appears about as harmless as a housefly. “Murdock,” the cop says, relieved. “You know, I heard of dumpster diving, but this is taking it a little too far,” he says, gesturing at Matt’s choice of wardrobe.

“Hi, Brett,” Matt says, flashing his most winning smile. Present Matt used the cop’s first name without hesitation, so he’s hoping it doesn’t come across as presumptuous if he does it now, too.  
   
“Are you drunk? Do you need someone to take you home?” Mahoney says, loosening his stance, holstering his weapon, and he speaks to Matt so carefully that Matt can’t help the scowl that crosses his face. He pulls the towel closer around his chest, because he gets it. He really does. This has to look shady as hell. Still. He may not have all the context here, and he doesn’t know why this cop’s first instinct is to pity him, but he can’t say he appreciates it very much.  
   
_“Tell him Foggy’s on his way to take you home.”_  
   
Matt pulls a hand out from under his towel. Loosely sets his fingertips over his mouth and pretends he’s rubbing his chin, scratching at stubble. “Is he?”  
   
_"Um. I'm working on it."_    


“Great,” he mutters. “Um. Foggy, he. You know Foggy, right? Nelson? He’s on his way. To um. To pick me up.” Matt cringes at how badly he stumbled through that sentence, which probably isn’t helping dissuade the cop’s less than stellar impression of him.  


   
“You don’t sound too sure about that.”  
   
“That’s ‘cause I’m not.”  
   
“Yeah, I don’t really need to hear about your personal problems,” Mahoney says. “Are you--”  
   
The thud of heavy boots dropping down behind them interrupts whatever else Mahoney was going to say. “There a problem here, detective?” Matt balls his fists at the clear playfulness in his voice, and Mahoney jumps right out of his skin.  
“Jesus Christ, you cannot keep doing that. I’m gonna die of a heart attack ‘cause ‘a you, and then I really will bust your ass.”  
   
Present Matt laughs, and Mahoney mutters under his breath, “damn. I was so sure, too,” which just seems like an odd non-sequitur until he turns to Matt and adds, “you grew up at St. Agnes, right?”  
   
“Um. Yes? Why do you ask, detective?”  
   
“No reason. Just checking,” Mahoney says, whisper quiet.  
   
Matt’s left wondering if this cop knows about all his time travel bullshit, until Mahoney says, “So. _Daredevil._ What’s your business here, if you don’t mind me asking.”  
   
Which… Matt angles his head to deepen his focus on Present Matt, and he’s pretty sure he’s wearing... body armor? And some kind of a helmet thing, too, which seems to be obscuring most or all of his face. Like a mask. Matt’s gut flips over.  
   
“What…” Matt says, voice sticking in his throat a little, and he really, really wants to reach his hand out and touch… himself.  
   
“I don’t mind at all. Just noticed Mr. Murdock here seemed a little lost. That’s all.”  Matt bristles at the implication. Especially since it isn’t wrong. “I’d like to see him home, if that’s okay.”  
   
 “You said Foggy’s coming to get you? Comfortable with staying with this lunatic until then?” Mahoney says to Matt. “‘Because I can take you home if you’re not.”  
   
“Um. No, that’s fine… detective. Thank you.”  
   
“All right,” Mahoney says to Other Matt. “But just as a warning, I will be following up with Nelson in the morning, so you better make sure this goes down the way it’s supposed to. Otherwise, next time we won’t be having such a friendly chat.”  
   
“You have my word,” Other Matt says, and Mahoney mutters about the worth of that as he returns to his car, radios the all clear, and drives off.  
   
Once he’s alone, Matt balls his hands and starts pacing. Self-hatred is an odd thing when you’re him.

“I can’t believe—You. I…” Matt cuts himself off and growls in frustration.

“You know, I kept my head in the sand for a long time. Tried to… tried to pretend.” Present Matt is speaking slowly, keeping his voice pitched low. “That I was normal, despite this…” He gestures at the space between them, to indicate _time travel bullshit_. “But I still went to the gym every day, didn’t I? And… and somehow when I found out, when I was standing right over there, on the… on the other side of this conversation, I was somehow _shocked_ that this,” and Other Matt knocks on the hard armor covering his chest, “that this was the outcome.”

“How is that any kind of explanation,” Matt bites out.

“It isn’t. It’s not. It just… it just is.” 

There’s fire in Matt’s gut, and he rushes forward with it. Present Matt lifts the helmet-thing from his head, throws it hard to the ground, and shakes out his sweaty hair. Keeping his arms relaxed, he blocks Matt’s right hook, and mirrors him by offering a right hook of his own. His ease of movement is a counterpoint to Matt’s coiled rage, and he doesn’t dodge quick enough because the punch lands square on his jaw. Matt straightens up and breathes and breathes, running his hand over the spot where the pain begins to blossom. Other Matt doesn’t offer an apology, or otherwise speak, he just stands there, alert and waiting, with his feet apart and his fists loose at his side.  
   
A car door slams, and Matt breathes out. Foggy’s here.  
   
“Yo, Murdocks!” Foggy’s framed in the mouth of the alley, and all Matt’s fight drains out of him. Apparently aware he’d walked into something tense, Foggy adds, “um. What’s going on.”  
   
“Nothing,” both Matts say, and Other Matt sweeps his helmet up from the ground and starts turning it over and over in his hands, spinning it like a playground ball.  
   
“That? Will never stop being freaky. Also? Not at all suspicious,” Foggy says. He turns to face Matt. “Young Master Murdock! Your chariot awaits. And by chariot, I mean Karen’s old-person car.”  
   
“Foggy,” Other Matt says, voice heavy with something Matt can’t identify. “Thank you, I--”  
   
“Yup,” Foggy says, clipping his words. “That’s what I’m here for. To help you out of a jam if you need me to.”  
   
“Can you tell Karen--”  
   
“You called me to come pick you up, correct?”

“Um, yes?”

“Then your phone’s not broken. Call her yourself.”  
   
“Foggy.”

Other Matt waits a beat before opening his mouth to say something else, but Matt interrupts him with a “hi,” and a small wave, because it seems like he’s been forgotten about amongst whatever’s happening here.  
   
“Yeah, Matt. Sorry,” Foggy says, voice suddenly soft and warm. “Car’s around the corner at your eleven o’clock. And Matt?” he adds, clearly aiming his voice to Present Matt still in the alley. Something unspoken passes between them, and Other Matt waves Foggy off before pressing the helmet back on his head and vaulting up to the rooftops above.

*  
In the car, Foggy keeps staring at him. He guiltily brings his hand up to his bruised face, and presses in.

“I can’t get over how young you look,” Foggy says after a while. 

“Probably ‘cause I’m nineteen?”

“Nineteen. Jesus. And where you’re from I’m probably nineteen, too.”

Matt nods. He worries at the towel for several long minutes until he has to say something. “I just found out I’ve been lying to myself. For years.”

“It’s not just a river in Egypt,” Foggy says with a humorless laugh. “You told me about this, you know.”

Matt doesn’t angle his head toward Foggy. He just keeps picking at the towel.

“You told me… look, Matt, I don’t know how much I can tell you--”

Matt huffs a little. “It’s fine. ‘Universe ending paradoxes’ aren’t really a thing, as far as I know. I mean, causality gets all tangled up, but you know. It’s fine.”

“You’re such an asshole, by the way. I nearly shat myself the first time I saw your _Orphan Black_ routine, my tighty-whities may never recover.”

 “…I don’t actually know what that means,” he says, because he’s hoping Foggy isn’t just making some tasteless joke about Matt’s upbringing. 

Foggy flaps a hand. “It’s a TV show. About clones.”

“You know I’m not a clone though, right? There’s actually only one of me.”

“So not the point.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“We’re almost there, by the way.”  
“Okay.”

“I’m just sayin’. I remember, you got pretty despondent there for a while, like I could tell something was up, but. Then when you eventually told me about your… whole deal, I realized.” Foggy pauses for a long moment, formulating his words Matt supposes. “Nelson and Murdock. That was our practice, you know? It was ours, and we did great work, we really helped people. Just. Don’t lose sight of that, you know?”

“Foggy--”

“Yeah, poor choice of words, but you know what I mean.”

“No, that’s not--” The car slows and comes to a stop, and Matt lets the rest of that thought wither and die.

“Casa de Murdock,” Foggy says grandly. 

“Oh, good. Now I know where I live.” Matt follows Foggy up the stairs, and when they stop in front of what he assumes is his door, Foggy produces a set of keys with a jangly flourish. “Good thing you have a spare key.”

“Ha, yeah. I mean, we could go in through the roof access, but I’d rather not tempt fate.”

Matt’s not sure what to make of that, so he just offers Foggy a bland smile.

Once inside, he takes stock of the apartment. A short hallway empties out into wide, open layout, and he trails his knuckles along the wall to his left as he moves more into the space. “Bigger than I expected,” he mutters. 

Foggy huffs, and Matt’s not sure how to read him. “I’m just gonna,” he hooks his thumb in the direction of the bedroom, and Foggy hums in acknowledgement.

Rooting through the dresser, he pulls out some comfortable bum-around-the-house clothes, then slips into the bathroom to hang the still damp swimwear over the shower rod. 

When he comes back into the living room, Foggy’s standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open. Matt knows the instant Foggy’s spotted him because his breathing hitches and his body temperature spikes a tiny bit, even as the cold air from the fridge pours over him. Matt tosses him a quizzical look, but Foggy just coughs and says, “heads up,” as he reaches into the fridge and tosses a bottle at Matt.

“It’s weird I can do this kind of thing around you now,” Matt says as he easily catches the bottle. Foggy makes an unhappy noise as he follows Matt to the couch, but otherwise stays quiet. He sips at his beer; it’s decent enough, but he supposes he develops a better appreciation for it as he gets older. Seated on the couch next to him, Foggy’s huffing, and breathing in fitful starts and stops. The way he sips at his beer suggests to Matt he’s more stalling for time than actually enjoying it. “What,” he says eventually.

Foggy inhales deeply and lets it all out in one long sigh. Sets his beer bottle down on the coffee table in front of him, and scrubs at his face and hair. “I miss you,” he says. There’s a vague hint of salt on the air; Foggy’s trying not to cry. “We’re barely on speaking terms,” he says wetly, and Matt’s not sure when it happened, but they’re pressed firmly together now, and Matt can feel where goose-flesh breaks out on Foggy’s arm. “I hate it,” he continues, “I hate it so much, and seeing you like this, it takes me right back there, you know? You’re the Matt I remember, my best friend, and it’s like we’re just those goofy college kids again. Hell, you still are that goofy kid. But that’s all gone now. It’s just… it’s fucked up, and _I miss you_.” Foggy’s hand slowly migrates toward Matt’s. First his pinky, then the whole rest of his hand, and their fingers intertwine easily, like it’s the way it’s supposed to be, like they belong together.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because they might still be great friends now, but clearly Matt fucks it up. Barely speaking. They’re barely speaking. He thinks back on sitting with an older self in that diner, the Matt who sat there and had the gall to say that things between he and Foggy were good. _Some rough patches, but we’re good._

“Don’t be sorry, you haven’t done anything wrong. Yet,” Foggy says. Then, “Well, no. That’s not true. There is the small matter of lying to me. About everything about you.” And Matt’s surprised by Foggy’s tone. It’s… fond. He turns his head toward Foggy, opens his mouth to offer another apology, to ask, _what can I do to make this better?_ but Foggy stops him by pressing his lips to Matt’s open ones. Which… huh. He brings his free hand up to Foggy’s face, runs his thumb over his cheek, his closed eye, his eyebrow. Sweeps it back down to rest at the base of his throat. Things get a little… heated after that. Foggy releases their still interlaced fingers, moves both of his hands behind Matt’s head, and buries his fingers deep in his hair. Pushes his hands against the back of Matt’s head, kissing him so deeply it’s like he needs Matt’s mouth just to breathe. Matt tries to angle his hips away from Foggy, but he’s pretty sure his sweatpants hide nothing. 

He breaks it off first. Licks his lips and says, “did I tell you about that, too?”

Foggy laughs. Full out guffaws. “No, Matt. You most certainly did not.” He goes quiet, breathing carefully through his nose, and brings his hand back up to Matt’s face. Touches his bottom lip with his index finger, then slides his hand over Matt’s bruised and aching jaw. “Jeez, Murdock,” he teases. “You’re the only person I know who takes ‘beating himself up’ to such ridiculous extremes.”

“I do what I can,” he says. Foggy’s hand carefully cups the whole side of his face, and Matt pushes into it. Foggy licks his lips and starts to move in for another kiss, but Matt turns his head away. He hears someone on the roof, and he recognizes the sound of the boots from earlier in the alley. Foggy makes a disappointed noise, so Matt says, “Present-me’s home.” 

“Shit,” Foggy says, and tugs at his clothing to hide his obvious arousal. “What am I doing,” he mutters. “You already know about this.”

The door opens, and Present Matt thunders down the stairs. “Not interrupting anything, I hope,” he says, as he sheds himself of his vigilante-wear.

“You are the biggest asshole to ever live.”

“Hi, Foggy,” he says.

The ringing starts in his ears, and Matt feels himself beginning to fade away. He won’t be here for very much longer. 

“I can’t believe you’ve been holding on to _that,_ ” Foggy says, gesturing emphatically at Matt, “for all these years. Since you were _nineteen?!_ Un-fucking-believable." 

“Why? Did something just happen?” Present Matt deadpans, and he and Foggy go to each other. Matt won’t get to find out what happens next for another ten years, but he has a pretty good idea if he’s honest with himself. His ears pop, and his muscles all cramp up, and then he’s safely back in his own bed. He laughs out loud, because he has never been that lucky. Not in all his years of traveling. Well, not until today, anyway.

*


	4. Chapter 4

*

“You,” Foggy says, poking Matt’s socked feet as he throws himself at the foot of Matt’s bed on a rainy Saturday morning, “have been avoiding me.” 

“I haven’t,” he says, pulling the pillow he’s been hiding under off his head. He sits up to make room for Foggy, draws up his legs and clutches the pillow tight against his chest. He offers Foggy a wide smile, and hopes it’s a convincing one, because the truth is, he has been avoiding Foggy. Not shutting him out, just, making himself conveniently scarce. 

“Hey now,” Foggy says, elbowing him in the ribs. “None of that.”

“Ow. None of what?”

“That. That patented Murdock ‘you can’t hate me, I’m way too cute’ smile. Ain’t buying it, buddy.”

Matt grins wider, says, “You really think I’m cute?” 

“Yeah. Real friggen,” Foggy says, as he slugs him in arm.

“What’s with all the violence?” he says, but angles his head away the moment the words leave his mouth, because while he meant it as a joke, the memory of the man he eventually grows up to be comes flooding back, and it’s all he can do to keep his hands from forming into fists. He tries to cover his growing frustration with another smile, though Foggy remains blissfully unaware of Matt’s inner turmoil. He breathes out, and this time his smile is more genuine. 

*

It’s been nearly nine months since that night in his future living room with a grown-up Foggy, and he can’t help it. He’s been thinking about it a real lot. Fantasizes about finally being able to control all his traveling, going where and when he wants to, going back there, sitting there with him again, talking to him, asking him about everything he knows since he learned the truth about the person he’ll grow up to be. Just the thought, the idea of talking to someone who knows him, someone who truly understands him, is unbelievably… arousing.

He thumps his head against the wall on Foggy’s side of the room, and bites his lip as he and a self from two weeks from now exchange hurried and desperate hand-jobs. A part of him hopes Foggy’ll walk in on him right now, catch him… catch him in the act, learn the truth about him this way, when he’s so, when he’s so… He wants, oh, God he wants—

“He won’t. He doesn’t,” two-weeks-from-now Matt says, voice strained and breathy against his ear, and Matt groans, because he’s equal parts relieved and frustrated to hear that; relieved because there’s something comforting in knowing he’s still thinking about it, still… obsessing over it days and days later, and frustrated that it’s still… a thing he’s thinking and obsessing about days and days later. Not to mention the fact that he’s going to break the fragile peace of a too rare quiet spell.

 When it’s over, Other Matt grabs a t-shirt from the floor, cleans them both up, and then pats down his hair after he’s thrown the shirt into the hamper. 

“Hey,” Matt says.

“I don’t know,” Other Matt says in a near whisper. About Foggy’s use of past tense back in the car. We _did_ great work. It _was_ our practice. It might not mean anything, and he is oh so very much aware of how fucked up tense usage can be where he’s concerned, but still. Matt can’t stop thinking about it.  “It’s only been two weeks since,” he vaguely gestures at Matt, “you know.”

“Yeah,” Matt says.

Before slipping out the door, he says, “hey. Don’t forget to leave yourself some clean clothes.  In the men’s room. Not this Monday night, the next one.”

“Yup,” he mutters as the door clicks shut. He flops down on his bed, boneless and worn, and presses his pillow over his head until he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

*

“You’ve been sleeping a real lot; you know that, right.”

Matt shrugs. He hasn’t been sleeping a lot. He’s been hiding under his pillow a lot.

“Well, I’m off.” To some party they’d been invited to. He doesn’t know.

“’kay.”

“Matt. You sure you don’t want to--”

“Have a good time, Foggy,” he says, pulling his covers further up over his shoulders and turning over.

*

He doesn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until Foggy’s banging around the room at some ungodly hour.

“Got you something,” Foggy says, even though Matt’s still pretending to be asleep.

He gives up the pretense and groans. “Yeah?”

“Sure.” He doesn’t sound very happy.

“Something happen?”

“Nah,” he says, and comes over to sit on the bed next to him. Foggy takes the pillow from his lap and replaces it with something cool and heavy. He moves his hands along its sides, revealing a squat bottle with a long wax covered neck.

“Whisky!” Foggy announces.

Matt hums and peels up the wax coating. Foggy takes the bottle from him, and wordlessly pours them each a generous amount into wide plastic cups. When Foggy presses one of the cups back into Matt’s hand, Matt makes a show of testing its weight before saying, “I think this is more than a couple fingers.”

Foggy huffs a laugh. “A handful, I’d say,” and Matt’s not sure, but he strongly suspects that’s a dig, so he lifts up his handful of whisky in Foggy’s general direction as a sarcastic toast, only for Foggy to meet it a little too forcefully, sloshing liquid onto both of their hands. 

“Shit,” Foggy mutters as he scrambles for something to wipe up the mess. “Hang on.” He produces a t-shirt from… somewhere and proceeds to mop them both up with it. The jostling makes Matt’s cup slosh even more, and he can’t keep from laughing. 

“Dammit!” Foggy says, and whisks the cup away before it can do any more damage.

“Thanks,” Matt says. He doesn’t mean for cleaning up the spill.

“Anytime,” Foggy answers, and Matt’s pretty sure he doesn’t mean the spill, either.

*

God, traveling is awful. Why he forgets this basic fact every single time will forever remain one of life’s mysteries. He’s hunched over and dry heaving when someone materializes behind him and starts flogging his naked back with some kind of cane. He tries to roll away and block the raining assault with his arms, but this only earns him more thrashings. Thrashings to his stomach, to his sides, to his ass.

“Get your ass off the floor,” the man barks out. The man, of course being Stick. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your hearing, too. Get off the goddamn floor.”  


“No, no, please.” _Make it stop._

“Beatings will continue until morale improves,” the asshole drawls. He thwacks the back of Matt’s head for good measure before finally taking a large step backwards.  


There’s blood, a lot of it, and he can smell it, he can feel it seeping from every pore and every angry welt on his body. He breathes; in, out, in, out, and slowly rises to his feet. He squares his shoulders and juts out his jaw. This time he isn’t bothered by his own nudity; he has nothing to hide here. There’s a heartbeat pounding out from somewhere behind him, and it’s himself as a kid. With Stick. His stomach clenches, and he tries not to gag, because this was bad enough the first time.

“Matty, get your dumbass teenage-self here something to wear, would ya?”

“But--” young Matt starts.

“Go, please. Thank you.” And he does.

“I’m not a kid, Stick.”

“How old are you, Matty.”

“…nineteen.”

“Nineteen years old, and here you are, the Prodigal Son returned.” He waits a beat and says, “no? Well, ain’t that a crying shame. And here I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

“Figured what out.”

“How to control it, Matty. But you can’t, can you. I’ll bet you didn’t even want to come here, so tell me. Just who is Matt Murdock, all grown up at nineteen-years-old.”

“I’m a… I’m a student.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Yeah, um, I’m a college student?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure. I, uh, I’m a lawyer? When I’m older, I mean.”

“Hm. A lawyer, you say. Well, that’s unfortunate.” 

Matt lowers his head and clenches his fists. Here it comes.

Young Matt returns with a stack of folded clothes, and Stick snatches them away and lobs them at Matt all in one fluid motion. He makes a half-assed attempt at reaching out for them. He catches the shirt, but the heavy jeans fall just short of his reach and they slap onto the floor like a KO’d fighter down for the count.

“And here’s me throwing in the towel,” Stick says to Matt. He turns to young Matt and says, “it was nice knowing ya, kid.”

Matt tries to breathe as his younger self yells out, “for real? You’re really leaving? Just like that?”     
             
“Just like that,” Stick says, pausing in the door frame. “Come find me when you’ve decided you’re done flitting around the timeline like some damned temporal pest. ‘til then, ta-ta.”

In the wake of Stick’s departure, Matt twists the t-shirt still in his hands. His younger self lunges at him with something like a roar, and starts raining an unholy barrage of fists down over his head. Left, right, left, right, and Matt just takes it, lets the t-shirt slip from his fingers to join its fallen friend on the floor, lets his arms hang loose at his sides and takes the beating as it comes, just takes it and takes it, until his legs fail him, until he’s crumpled on the floor with only the discarded pile of clothes to catch him.

*

“—Hey! Hey, what the hell happened to you?”

Matt groans. There isn’t a spot on him that doesn’t hurt. “Who--”

“Jesus, look at you.” He doesn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Matt. The bleeding I get, but why in God’s name are you naked.” She sits on her haunches and wraps him up in a large, scratchy towel.

“Thanks,” he says, and, “I’m sorry.”

She blows out a long breath. “Yeah, yeah. You’re always sorry. Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

She tries to pull him up to standing, but he’s made of rubber; someone’s taken out all his bones and deposited his empty shell out here in someone’s hallway like so much garbage. 

“You gotta help me out here,” she says, long suffering. Eventually he gets upright, and she leads him into her place and deposits him on the couch.

“There’s something different about you, I can’t put my finger on it,” she says, after tossing a pair of shorts at him. He slips them on, though he leaves the towel draped over his shoulders. He should ask her about their dynamic, about how they know each other, who they are to one another, but he’s not sure he has the energy for that kind of conversation. Plus, he doesn’t want to come across as though he’s suffering from memory loss. People don’t tend to respond well to that. “Not up for talking, huh,” she says, as she roots around in a kitchen cabinet and pulls down a first aid kit. “Well, the joke’s on you, pal.  Turns out? I actually like peace and quiet. Which is a rare, rare thing where you’re concerned.” She sets the kit down next to him on the couch, opens it and pulls on a pair of latex gloves. 

 “Sure I can’t persuade you on the pain meds?” she says, rattling a pill bottle at him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think I can be persuaded.”

“Since when,” she says, voice absolutely dripping with incredulity. She runs her hands through his hair, makes a show of feeling for signs head trauma. “Pod-person, maybe,” she mutters before pressing two small pills into his palm. 

“Thanks,” he says, and dutifully swallows them.

“Sure thing. One day I will figure you out, Matthew Murdock, but today is not that day.”

He huffs out a small laugh. There’s something appealing about that idea, he has to admit. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she agrees, and sets to work stitching him up and pressing down bandages of various sizes and shapes until she’s turned him into a human-shaped patchwork quilt. He hopes against hope that he doesn’t travel again before his injuries have a chance to heal, at least a little bit. 

 “Thanks,” he manages, as he moves his hands over his bare torso, cataloging the enormity of this impossibly kind stranger’s handiwork. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” she says. She gets up and fills a glass of water from the faucet. He downs most of it almost as soon as she presses it into his hand, then sets it on the floor by his feet once it’s empty.  “Anything else you want or need? I have…” she snatches up the glass from the floor and heads back into the kitchen to poke around in the refrigerator. “There’s leftover pizza if you want some of that.”

“No, no, I couldn’t... you’ve done so much for me already. Thank you.”

“Hm.”

“What.”

“Matt,” she says. He’s not sure how to parse her tone. She draws in a deep breath, opens her mouth to speak, and then shuts it. Waits a beat, then: “I… was just going to ask you if you want to borrow my phone. Call your friend?” It’s… not entirely the truth but it’s not exactly a lie, either. He’s not sure what to make of it.

Matt opens his mouth to ask her to clarify that for him, whether she means Foggy, but her phone rings before he has the chance to.

“Speaking of,” she mutters, and answers with a, “hey we were just talking about you.”

_“Yeah, hi, Claire. I was just calling to warn you that Matt’s gonna be swinging by your place. Cool?”_

Claire. His breath catches, he’s not sure why.

“Hm. That'll be a little difficult to pull off, seeing he’s here already and crapped out on my couch.” She lowers her voice, for all the good that would do, “just what the hell happened to him? Do you know how I found him? Outside my door wearing nothing but his birthday suit. Like being bruised and battered and bleeding in the hallway wasn’t bad enough.”

_“Yeah, I know it sucks. But that’s kinda why I’m calling? Is it okay if I come by, too?”_ Foggy’s breathing changes. _“She deserves to know, Matt.”_

Matt frowns as she throws her arms in the air, exasperated. He offers her a weak smile. “There’s something else now? What, the blind vigilante thing wasn’t enough?”

_“I know, right? It’s always something with that one. So… is it cool if--”_

“I’ll be here,” she says, sounding utterly defeated.

_“You are awesome. See ya in few.”_

Claire, _Claire_ deposits the phone on the kitchen counter and makes her way over to sit on top of her coffee table, pulling up her legs until she’s in a loose lotus pose.  


“You mind telling me what’s going on this time?” she says, voice impossibly soft.

For some reason, he really, really wants to try saying her name out loud. Feel the way his lips move around it, hear the sound of it. He breathes. In. Out. Then: “Claire,” and it’s incredible how reverential it sounds, almost like her very name is a--

“Matt.” His name on the other hand, sounds like the exact opposite of a prayer. 

“Yeah, um. Sounds like Foggy’s coming by?”

“Don’t be a smartass. If you weren’t already beat to shit, I’d slug you one, right now. _Pow._ ” She mimes a punch to the arm, though it doesn’t actually connect.  


“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“I dunno about you, but I’ve heard the beginning usually works.”

Matt huffs out a laugh. “The beginning. I’m not sure there is one, to be honest. My life doesn’t exactly work that way.”

“Why would it,” she mutters. “Okay, how’s this. You tell me what happened to you tonight, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

That’s fair, he supposes. “Well, turns out I might have some unresolved issues.”

She breathes out. “No shit. I could have told you that.”

“What happened to me today was my fault. I’ve been blaming myself for it for years, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I mean, it happened when I was a kid, so.” He spreads out his hands and gives a defeated shrug. _What can ya do._

“Wait,” she says. “Hold up. What happened to you _today_ happened when you were a kid? How does that make sense?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it. Maybe we should wait ‘til they… ‘til Foggy gets here.”

“ _He_ didn’t do this to you?” She sounds alarmed. She gets up, paces.

“No! No, I did it. It was all me.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What the hell kind of lawyer are you, anyway. You’re not exactly winning your case here.”

“Probably because I’m not a lawyer? Usually you have to pass the bar first.”

“…are you shitting me?”

Outside, Foggy and Present Matt steel themselves, finalize their strategy, and part ways. Present Matt vaults up to the fire escape outside Claire’s window while he waits for Foggy to knock on the front door. Matt holds his breath and waits.

*


	5. Chapter 5

*

Claire sighs and deflates a little when she opens up her door to a sweating and nervous Foggy Nelson. Like he’s here to pick up his date for prom. Matt’s tempted to tease Foggy about it, but he bites it back when he remembers that he’s the reason Foggy’s here at all, and nothing about this is funny. 

She motions for him to come in, and they both engage in an awkward and halting dance as Foggy vacillates between offering a polite peck on the cheek, or a full out hug. “Here,” she says, and rescues him by tapping at her cheek. He snorts a little before he obliges. “You’re cute,” Claire says, “but not that cute.”

“Hear that, Matty, she said I’m cute.”

“I heard.” 

“Oh! Before I forget.” Foggy thrusts a paper bag at Claire, and it crinkles loudly in her hands as she accepts it.

 “Thanks,” she says, wryly.  It’s a bottle. Wine probably, judging from the shape and size of it.

“Couldn’t just invite myself over and show up empty handed,” Foggy says. He comes over to sit next to Matt on the couch, while Claire puts the wine bottle in the fridge. “Yup, you’ve looked better. I mean, you’ve looked worse, but you’ve definitely looked better.”

“Thanks, Foggy.”

“Any time, buddy,” and in a stage whisper he adds, “and I do mean _any time._ ”

“Dammit,” Matt mutters. He tries to control his breathing. “This is a bad idea, Foggy.” 

“You would know,” Foggy says, just as the Matt waiting on the fire escape taps at the window.

And Claire _jumps,_ and her breathing becomes quick and shallow. “ _Matt,”_ she hisses out, and he and Foggy are right at her side as she fumbles through a kitchen cabinet for something to use as a weapon. 

Present Matt knocks on the window again, this time almost timidly, and Foggy says, “Claire. Is it okay if I--” 

“What? Are you crazy? What if—no. I want Matt. I have seen him kick ass in way worse condition,” she says emphatically, “than that, so I know--”

“Nobody’s in danger here,” Foggy says, gesturing at Claire and the deadly frying pan she’s wielding.  

Predictably, she jerks it back just out of his reach.

“You don’t _know that.”_

“No, it’s okay. I’ll do it,” Matt grumbles, and he shoots Foggy a face he hopes reads as _‘I told you this was a bad idea.’_ “For what it’s worth, Claire, I’m really sorry.”  


“What the fuck, Matt,” she says, clearly trying not to panic.

He moves toward the window, pulls up the blinds, and unlocks the latch on the middle of the window. Claire’s breath hitches. Then he throws up the sash, removes the screen, and steps aside to make way for his present self to climb through the window.

“’bout time,” Present Matt drawls once he’s safely inside. Then: “hi, Claire.”

“What in the holy hell am I looking at,” Claire says, doing her best to temper her panic, though clearly failing. She tightens her grip around the frying pan, holding it up over her shoulder like a baseball bat. Present Matt takes a small step forward. “Don’t you dare come any closer,” she says.

He slowly puts his hands up over his head, surrendering. “I promise. Staying right here. Though I feel I should point out that maybe asking a blind man to tell you what it is you’re looking at might not get you the best answer.” 

Claire takes in a panicky breath, and Matt feels like the world’s biggest asshole.

“Ooh! I know!” Foggy say. “Pick me!” He’s raising his hand and waving it around like he’s that kid in school; the know-it-all with all the answers. Matt breathes out through his nose and presses his lips together. “The Dork of Hell’s Kitchen?”

“How long have you been sitting on that one, Fog,” Present Matt says as he brings his arms back down.

“A while,” Foggy admits.

“Off,” Claire demands, indicating Present Matt’s helmet-thing. “I wanna see.”

He does, he pulls the helmet off his head, pats down his hair, and then hands the thing over to Matt. Claire gasps, but Matt’s too distracted by the hard, cool shape in his hands. It feels heavy with significance; he’s not sure if he should even be holding it. He smooths his hands over it, feels the strange, nubby horns protruding from the top. Inexplicably, it makes him think of his dad. He wonders what it would feel like if he just--

_“Matt,”_ Foggy says in an undertone as he elbows him. Feeling like he’s been caught with a hand in the jar, he snaps back to attention.

“I’d been dying to touch it,” Present Matt explains, gesturing to Matt holding the helmet. 

“Makes sense,” Foggy mutters.

“Hello!” Claire says, sounding… well, Matt’s not sure there’s a word strong enough for how upset she sounds. “How does this make any kind of sense?”

“Well, there isn’t two of me,” Present Matt says. “In case you were wondering.” He pauses. “Well, I mean, there _is_ … but.”

“Matt,” Foggy says, and Matt’s not sure which version of himself Foggy’s addressing.

Claire makes a show of checking all the hidden spaces in her apartment. Glancing behind doors and peeking into adjacent rooms. “I’m not gonna find Rod Serling casually chain-smoking somewhere, right? Because I gotta say. This is some freaky other-dimension _shit._ ”

“No chain-smoking,” Foggy says. “I’m pretty sure Matt’s delicate nose couldn’t take it.” He snorts. “Both his noses.”

“You really should have planned this better,” Matt mumbles, while Claire paces. She sets the frying pan down on the stove top at any rate, so Matt takes that as his cue to deposit the helmet onto the nearby kitchen table. 

“Too late for that,” Present Matt says to him as he returns to where he and Foggy are standing.  Which is… fair, he supposes. Obviously, Matt won’t arrive at a better solution. “Claire, I’m really—Is it okay if we--”

“Strip,” Claire says to Present Matt.

“Whoa!” Foggy says.  “Should I give you kids--”

“Shut up,” she snaps. 

“Shutting up.”

“I want to see your scars.”

“Scars?” Matt says, voice cracking. Which is just fantastic.

“Yeah,” Foggy says unhappily. “You got sliced and diced pretty good a couple months back.” 

Once Present Matt’s stripped down to his waist, he says to Claire, “Do I pass inspection?”

“I don’t--” Claire starts to say, sounding absolutely befuddled. She lets the rest of whatever she was going to say die in her throat.

 “Can I?” Matt says.

“Yeah,” and Present Matt grabs his wrist and moves his hand up to his now bare torso. Matt reads his own body like it’s written in Braille; the scars across his chest and down his side all tell their own story, and Matt’s stomach twists in knots knowing he’ll have to face that one day.

Then Matt starts to poke at his own abdomen, feels the bandaging there. Present Matt has a smooth, and very old scar in the very same spot as one of Matt’s bandages, and he splays his hands over both of their bodies. “Holy shit,” Foggy mutters, and he wonders how this all must look from the outside.

“Matt,” Claire says. 

And both Matts jerk away guiltily. “Can we,” Present Matt starts. He takes a fortifying breath before he continues, “I’d like to talk to you about all this, if that’s okay.”

She breathes out. “Yeah. Okay.” And Other Matt follows Claire to her bedroom. The door remains firmly open as Matt hears the bed sag with their combined weight.

Voice barely above a whisper, Other Matt begins, _“so I have this rare disorder_ \--” and Matt tunes them out as he sits at Claire’s kitchen table. 

Next to him, a chair scrapes across the linoleum as Foggy joins him. “How you holding up?”

“Tired,” he admits. “I’ve never traveled twice in a row like this before. Usually I just go straight back, so I’m not sure why this time it’s different.”

“Maybe you just needed to come have Claire patch you up.” 

“I don’t think it works that way? But sure,” he says. Then after a beat: “I like her.”

“Pfft. Yeah, buddy. We all know. And I only met her the one time, but, you know. She’s good people. Too bad it didn’t—I mean... Well, shit.”

“Ah. So, we--?”

“I think for like, a minute? I don’t know. I’m not exactly privy to all the details.”

Matt angles his head so it’s facing Foggy more directly. “Yeah, neither am I,” he deadpans. Then: “You know, I’m not entirely sure where I am.” Foggy opens his mouth so Matt adds, “and don’t say ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ or ‘Claire’s place’ or whatever. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. Um, okay. Let’s see. We recently put away a Big Bad, which was hard earned, believe you me, so our little rinky-dink firm’s gotten itself quiet the rep around town. And! We have actual paying clients now! Okay, so they tend to be the of the Little Guy variety who tend to pay us in baked goods rather than, you know, actual _dough_ , but it’s good work. It’s awesome. We’re awesome.” So it’s sometime before that night in the alley, before his and Foggy’s estrangement. Before they-- He rubs his face as Foggy continues, “and you’re still… you know.” He gestures at the helmet sitting innocuously next to Matt’s elbow. “I can’t seem to talk you out of it.”

“You don’t like it,” Matt realizes.

“I don’t like talking about it,” he corrects. “So let’s not and say we did,” Foggy says, then: “What about you?”

“I don’t like talking about it, either.”

“Ha ha.”

“No, I… I wasn’t very happy about it. When I found out, I mean. I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” And Matt explains about that night in the alley, and the fight he had with himself. He doesn’t want to spook Foggy or anything, so he strategically leaves out the part about what happened afterwards in Matt’s apartment. 

“Gotta admit, I’m kinda surprised to hear that.”

Matt shrugs just as Present Matt and Claire emerge from the bedroom and join them at the table.

“You shouldn’t be,” Present Matt mutters. He claps Foggy on the shoulder before sitting down.

Foggy breathes out through his nose but doesn’t respond. Right. Doesn’t like talking about it. Present Matt huffs as Foggy says to Claire, “so. You look a little pole-axed.”

She sighs and throws her hands in the air. “Couple years ago, the whole world learned aliens were real the day they literally poured down over Midtown. Now it’s genetic disorders that cause people to fucking time travel. Why the hell not. I cannot wait for whatever’s next on the batshit parade.”

Present Matt squirms in his seat and worries at his fingers as Foggy says, “It’s best not to think too hard on the implications of time travel. That way madness lies.”

Matt cocks his head toward his present self. A _‘what’s up with the squirming.’_ Present Matt just vaguely shakes his head no. He nods a little. _Okay._ Tap dancing around a lifetime of experiences and contexts gets exhausting, sometimes.

“Don’t tell me,” Claire says, “now it’s telepathy?”

“Nope, that’s just Matt,” Foggy says with a snort. “He talks to himself. A lot.”

Claire sighs. “Okay, so,” she says, gesturing between both Matts. “Speaking of which, how the hell do I address you?”

Matt thrusts out his hand. With a crooked smile, he says, “my name’s Matthew. But most people just call me Matt.” Claire doesn’t shake his hand, instead she smacks his wrist like he’s a misbehaving child.

“Don’t be a smartass,” she says, so Present Matt offers his hand, too. “What did I just say,” she says, laughing a little. It’s a nice sound.

Foggy elbows him in the rib as Matt makes a show of rubbing at his injured hand. Matt raises his eyebrows at him in question. 

Foggy turns to Present Matt to say, “your ideas don’t always objectively suck. There. I said it.”

“Thanks, Fog,” Present Matt says, sitting up a little straighter, with an obvious smile in his voice.

“Uh huh,” Claire says, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. “Would this plan happen to involve sneaking onto my fire escape in the middle of the night and scaring the ever-loving shit out me? Because yeah, I’m gonna say that plan kinda sucked.” She says it almost playfully, like she expects all Matt’s plans to suck. 

“I’ll be sure to do it differently when I’m over there,” Matt deadpans, hooking a thumb at his present self. “Honestly, though, Claire. Thanks for not kicking me to the curb, you know. Once you found out about me.”

“Jesus, is that what you expected to happen?” She reaches across the table, clasps her hand around his fingers and gives them a firm squeeze before pulling away.  


“Well, a lot of the time I travel to when something bad happened, so yeah. I kinda expected something bad to happen.”

“Revisiting past traumas over and over again. You do know what that sounds like, right.”

“The thought has definitely occurred to me,” Other Matt says. “Did I ever tell you about Stick?” and Matt cradles his head against the table.

“Evil Master Po,” Foggy explains.

“Evil’s maybe a little strong,” Matt mumbles, and Present Matt goes on to explain to Claire--and probably Foggy too; Matt’s not sure if he already knows the story—about Stick, about how he left, about how it was all his fault.

“So, you see why I don’t really tell people,” Matt says, offering her a weak smile. “I’m not particularly interested in being used as anyone’s weapon.”

Foggy breathes out, as Claire says, “an ‘I’m sorry’ just doesn’t seem like it’s enough. Jesus, what an asshole. But you can’t blame yourself, Matt. You were just a kid.”

“I appreciate that, Claire, I really do, but,” and Matt pulls a hand out from under his resting head to roam over one of his larger bandages, “but he didn’t beat me today because he’s an evil bastard.” Foggy huffs out an irritated noise, so he adds, “well, not only, but. It was… it was a test, and I failed it.”

“A weapon,” Foggy mutters.

“Yeah, that’s a whole ‘nother thing,” Present Matt says. 

Everyone’s quiet for a long moment until Claire says, “Matt. You should go home. Get some rest.” He nods. He really wants to sleep. He’d especially love his own bed, but. 

Present Matt says, “I’m pretty sure I ended up staying here—in this time, I mean, not you’re place specifically, Claire—for a couple days when I was here, so.” He shrugs and Matt sighs. So much for his own bed.

Claire stands up and pushes in her chair, and Foggy and Present Matt do the same. Foggy taps Matt on the shoulder as Claire wanders back into the kitchen. He puts out his hand, and Foggy helps haul him up to standing.

“Any chance I can get you to take some pain meds before you go?” she asks.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“How did I know you were going to say that,” she deadpans.

“Thanks. For everything, Claire. I wish we’d met under better circumstances, but… I’m glad. To have met you.” 

“Yeah, well. Some things never change, do they. At least it wasn’t the garbage this time.”

“The garbage?” Matt says.

To Present Matt: “I just realized. That day I pulled you out of there, you acted like you didn’t already know me. You bastard,” she mimes slugging him in the arm, and Matt can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.

“Sorry,” Present Matt says. He doesn’t sound sorry in the least bit.

“Look at you, getting all loopy,” Foggy says. “C’mon. Let’s blow this pop stand.” So they do.

*


	6. Chapter 6

*  
He’s woken up by the sound of a talking alarm clock-- _Five-Fifty-Nine, a.m._ it says, and someone comes over to shut it off. The bed is oddly familiar in its unfamiliarity, the way it feels, the way it smells. He knows it’s his bed even though he’s never been in it before. It takes him a moment until he remembers where and when he is.  


“Morning,” Other Matt says, as he shuffles around the bedroom, and Matt groans in response. “Sorry, early start.” Once he’s finished dressing, he tosses something at Matt; it’s a phone. Other Matt clears his throat, like he’s slightly embarrassed. “It’s a… a spare. It has Claire’s number, and I had Foggy put mine in last night. In case you need anything.”

“Okay,” he mutters, because he’s honestly a little annoyed he’s still here. 

After his present self’s left for the day, Matt uses the opportunity to grab a quick shower and shave, and once he’s done with that and feeling a little more human again, he takes some time to feel out his living space a bit more. It’s odd being back here again, knowing it’s his place, knowing it won’t really be his for several more years. It’s spacious and open and he likes it a lot. Of course he does, he picks it out. 

He follows the stairs up to the roof, and listens as the city wakes up and starts its day. (Honking car horns, and tires screeching, and “hey, watch where you’re going!” and burning fryer oil from various food carts, and church bells, and morning talk shows, and police radios, and, and, and…)

He plops himself down onto the hard surface of the rooftop, because existing in the wrong time always leaves him feeling unmoored. “Unstuck in time,” he calls it, even though he hasn’t actually read Vonnegut for himself. Sitting down in a loose lotus pose up on his future rooftop while he should be in class working toward that very same future leaves him feeling a bit like he’s a snake eating its own tail; like he’s trapped in a closed loop. But he doesn’t have to stay trapped. Not really. If he wanted to, he could break the loop right now; hop on the subway back to the college campus-- it’s not actually all that far from where he’s currently sitting--and be back to where he’s supposed to be. But he’s separated by time, not distance, and while spatial subway lines are of course a real thing, temporal ones definitely are not. Maybe someone should invent that. (Or maybe not. Causality’s fucked up enough as it is.)

He breathes, rests his palms loose and open on his knees, and lets the warm morning sun wash over him. He stays that way until he loses all track of time, until the spare phone his present-self had loaned him starts ringing. He’d said either he or Claire has this number, so he’s a little more than surprised when it’s Foggy’s voice that greets him on the other end of the line.

“Hey. Just wanted to check in on ya. See how you’re holding up.” On the other end of the line, there’s the usual city noises; impatient drivers leaning on their horns, the hiss of air brakes from a nearby city bus, the crush of bustling pedestrians on the crowded streets, and Foggy just slightly out of breath from keeping up with it all.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Matt says, “if a little bored.” And frustrated. There isn’t anywhere to go, or anything to do, and he’s not sure how much more of this hanging in limbo he’s in store for. The present version of himself mentioned that he sometimes goes to Fogwell’s gym after hours to work out his frustrations over a punching bag, and if Matt’s still dangling here, then he might do just that. 

 “Talk about time travel,” Matt says. “I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”

Foggy makes some kind of unhappy noise. Then he says, “I was kinda hoping I could convince you to come out for drinks tonight if you’re still around. Matt said—I mean, you… from now, in the present—said you would be, so. How ‘bout it. Just you and me.” 

Matt presses his lips together in a hard line. He thinks back to a lonely and desperate Foggy, the one who missed Matt so much it made both their hearts ache. He bites back the impulse to apologize; instead, and as warmly as possible he says, “yeah. Sounds good.”

 After he’s decided he’d had enough baking in the sun for one day, he heads back downstairs, and ends up just puttering around the apartment for a few hours. Makes himself something to eat, fishes out a beer from the fridge, and finds some classical music streaming on his laptop.  After lunch, he pokes around some more until he comes across… the devil suit, for lack of a better term, and Matt’s not entirely sure how he feels about it. It’s oddly disconcerting, like flipping through the pages of his own dark subconscious. He stores the thing in the same trunk that houses all his dad’s old boxing paraphernalia for God’s sake, and that just draws all kinds of uncomfortable parallels between their lives, and Matt never wanted that for himself. And neither did his dad. In fact, carrying the weight of his father’s hope for a better life for his son is the whole reason Matt’s even in school. His gut twists a little, because honestly, he cannot fathom how he gets there from here. 

When the phone in his pocket rings, it startles him badly enough that he slams the trunk closed and guiltily jerks away from it. He shoves it back in the closet underneath all his neatly pressed suits, and he has to take a few deep breaths just to keep the note of anxiety from taking over his voice when he finally does answer the phone.  


“Hello?” he says, and he’s pretty sure his voice doesn’t give anything away, which is a plus as far as he’s concerned.

“Hey,” Claire says. She sounds casual and relaxed, which helps immensely in steadying him. He breathes out. “How you holding up,” she asks, and it’s the question of the day, it seems. She sounds fond, and long-suffering, and he’s grateful there’s a Claire in his life.

“Yeah, well. Wish I could say the same,” she says, keeping that same fond tone to her voice. He thinks about asking her to come out with them tonight, with him and Foggy, but the words stay lodged in his throat. Instead he says, “I hope I get to talk to you again. Before I catch up to you in the present, I mean.”  


She hums thoughtfully. “You’d know better than I would.” 

“Not always,” he says, laughing a little, because he was born and raised in the state of Out of Context, and any advantages he might have from living a non-linear existence tend to get negated by the disadvantages that come along with it. “I appreciate you checking in on me,” he says after a beat, and he feels an acute sense of loss after she’s told him “anytime,” and, “bye, Matt,” and disconnects the line. And then he just sits there, holding the phone in his hands for a long moment before eventually shoving it back in his pocket, firmly shutting the closet door and leaving everything inside it.

*

Later that night Matt’s waiting for Foggy outside some dive bar, hiding behind his glasses and gripping his cane. The present version of himself isn’t in any dire need of them; he has other things to worry about, apparently. Gangs, or drugs, or something. Matt wasn’t especially interested in hearing the details.

“Well, well,” Foggy says as he strolls up to where Matt’s standing. “If it isn’t the Kitchen’s very own Clark Kent.” He moves toward Matt like he’s going in for a hug, but he changes tack at the last possible second and claps Matt on the shoulder instead. Matt pointedly raises his eyebrows at Foggy, but doesn’t call him on it.  
Instead he says, “I’m Superman now?”

“I’m just saying,” Foggy drawls from out of the side of his mouth. “Have you ever seen Clark Kent and Superman in the same room before? Because I sure haven’t.”

“Can’t say I have,” Matt deadpans, and he grabs Foggy’s elbow as they head inside. 

“You’re hilarious.”

“I try.”

Once they’ve settled into the last two available seats at the far end of the bar, Foggy wastes no time in reaching behind the counter and helping himself to a pair of glasses and a bottle of liquor... of some kind.

“You boys just go ahead and make yourselves at home,” a woman from behind the bar grumbles sarcastically. 

“Josie loves us.”

“Clearly,” Matt says. He hopes to endear her with his most charming smile, but the only reward he gets for his efforts is a huff of disapproval before she vanishes off somewhere. In her wake, he smiles wider and lets himself relax more into his seat.

After that, it’s all easy banter between them. Even if they both know there’s a heavy cloud of The Unspoken hanging over them. Mostly, though, it’s a just a matter of mismatched life experiences. Matt desperately wants to talk about That Night and all its numerous implications, but he can’t even begin to broach that topic, because for Foggy, that night hasn’t happened yet. Won’t happen for another year, year and a half, maybe. And as for Foggy, there’s an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences and in-jokes Matt doesn’t yet have context for. So they drink, and laugh, and give each other plenty of shit. Easy. In fact, it’s almost impressive how deftly Foggy dances around any potential landmines, so Matt’s more than willing to play along and laugh at all his bad jokes.

And then Foggy’s phone rings.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency.”

_“Foggy?”_ The woman’s voice on the other end of the line cracks on Foggy’s name, and all his joviality drains away.

“Hey,” Foggy says, reassuringly. “It’s Karen,” Foggy whispers to Matt as if that were explanation enough, then says to the woman, to Karen, “everything okay?”

_“No, no, nothing’s wrong, just. Weird.”_ Matt raises his eyebrows at Foggy as she continues, _“I mean, I know it’s late, but I wanted to come in and look over those papers again and--”_

“Karen. I promise it’ll all still be there in the morning. You really should just--”

__

__

_“Do not start with me, Franklin.”_

__

_“Franklin,”_ Matt mouths, and Foggy elbows him in the ribs for it. Matt offers him a wide, shit-eating grin.

_“Anyway. That’s not even why I’m calling. I mean, I thought you and Matt were out, so I didn’t expect anyone else in the office.”_ She takes a breath and says the rest all in a rush, _“but when I came in, Matt slammed his door shut and now he won’t come out, so. And now I don’t know what to do.”_

Matt throws his head back and tries not to groan. 

Foggy breathes out through his nose. “Well, shit,” he says. Matt taps Foggy on the arm to get his attention, and then tugs at his own shirtsleeve. “Yeah,” Foggy quietly agrees, and then says to Karen, “look. I know it seems kind of odd, but I’ve known Matt a long time, and he… he sometimes has these,” Foggy clears his throat, “episodes, and it can be a little weird if you don’t know about… I mean, it’s nothing bad, but I’ve been through this enough times with him before, so I know how to handle it. So let me come in and handle it.” Foggy raises an index finger at him, a clear ‘wait minute’ gesture, and Matt’s eyebrows are practically in his hairline.

_“Episodes? What, you mean like depression?”_ She sounds both skeptical and concerned. Matt grimaces. There’s shuffling on the other end of the line—she’s moving around. A quick _knock-knock_ on something solid and then, _“Matt? Come on. Whatever’s going on with you, you know you can talk to me, or. Or you can wait for Foggy—that’s totally fine, but you don’t need to hide, not from me. Please.”_

Other Matt’s voice drifts over the line. It’s too muffled for him to make out whatever’s being said, and Matt’s face goes very hot.

“Karen,” Foggy says. “I’m gonna hang up, okay? I’ll be there in few, but you don’t have to wait for me. I mean, you can if you want to, but you don’t have to. I got this.”

_“I’m not going to just leave if he’s in there having some kind of depressive episode, Foggy.”_

“I get it, that’s--” Foggy pauses to inhale, “okay, I’m hanging up now, all right? See ya in about ten,” and Foggy pockets his phone once the call is disconnected, and Matt rubs his face. 

“Foggy to the rescue,” Matt mutters, as Foggy stands and shrugs into his coat.

“We really need to come up with a better plan than ‘deal with it as it happens,’” Foggy says. He then fishes his wallet out from his pocket and flags down the bartender. She doesn’t say anything to them, just rings up their bill at the register and slaps the strip of paper down on the counter in front of them. 

Once they’re settled up, Foggy says, “maybe you’ll end up doing your Houdini trick before we even get there.”

“You’re just gonna assume I’m going with you.”

“Yeah, I mean. Why not. Two birds and all that.”

“Telling two people in as many days? I don’t know, Foggy. And besides, I don’t even know her.” 

“You haven’t met Karen yet,” Foggy says slowly. Matt can’t really blame him, though. It must take a lot of mental work to keep all the whens and wheres straight. “Before yesterday, you didn’t know Claire,” Foggy points out.

“That’s different. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You have a choice now,” Foggy says. Then over-dramatically he adds, “c'mon! There’s no time like the present!”

“But it’s not the present,” Matt mutters, as he shrugs into his own jacket. He’s pretty sure that came out sounding whinier than he intended, so he says, “why are you so invested in this, anyway.”

“No reason,” Foggy says as he pushes open the door. Matt makes a face at him because Foggy wasn’t being honest just then. 

“Fog.”

“No, just. I realized something. But you’re not there yet, so.”

It occurs to him that Foggy may have discovered how to exploit a temporal loophole when it comes to avoiding topics he doesn’t wish to discuss.

Outside, there’s a cool breeze and the air is saturated enough that he can tell that it’ll probably rain soon. He holds loosely onto Foggy’s elbow, and as they walk, Foggy fishes out his phone, and then Matt’s voice is instructing the caller to leave a message. 

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not home. Ignore this.” Foggy disconnects the call with an annoyed huff. He tries another number, and as it rings he mutters to Matt, “I don’t actually expect him to pick up. Because why would he.”

Matt counts ten, eleven, twelve seconds before Foggy shoves the phone back into his pocket, and Matt has to pat down his hair after a fat raindrop falls on his head. Another one falls, and then another. He tugs at Foggy’s arm, and then they pick up the pace. 

Foggy’s phone rings in his pocket, and he startles badly enough that he nearly jumps out of his skin.

The Matt on the other end wastes no time on pleasantries. _“I’m only calling you back because you know better than to call this number. I don’t have a lot of time; make it quick.”_  


“Well, hello to you, too,” Foggy snaps.

_“Foggy.”_

“Matt.”

_“Yeah. I’m hanging up now.”_

“Matt. Matt, wait. Just. Do you remember traveling and locking yourself in your office?”

_“Shit. That’s today isn’t it.”_

“You don’t remember this stuff?”

_“No, I do, but,”_ and Present Matt lowers his voice, _“I don’t exactly have a way of keeping track of where and when I am. I mean, it’s not like anyone’s keeping a journal or anything.”_

“Well, maybe that’s not such a terrible idea. You can make out ink on paper, right?”

_“Yeah, if I concentrate—Foggy, we can talk about this if you want, but now is really, really not a good time.”_

“I suppose I can’t convince you to come to the office with me, then. Tell Karen while we’re at it?”

_“Yeah, I remember. Two birds, one stone. Three birds at that rate, since I’m… you know. But Foggy. I can’t. And anyway. That’s not how it happened. You brought me clothes, and it was fine. It’ll be fine. You can handle it. But I have to go. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”_

“Yeah, fine,” Foggy says, but the line’s already disconnected. “I can’t actually afford to buy a new phone right now,” Foggy says to Matt, faux-casual. “Which is good because then I might be tempted into smashing it until it’s nothing more than fucking confetti. That’s how frustrated I am with you.”

Matt’s shirt is starting to stick to his skin now that it’s raining in earnest, his eyebrows are high up on his forehead as he imagines Foggy violently assaulting his cell phone with a baseball bat into bits, and he knows now that the cracks in their friendship started forming a lot sooner than he realized.

“But see, here’s the thing,” he continues, “I told myself that it didn’t have to be completely terrible, because sometimes I still had my friend. You see, he comes to visit every once in a while, and then it’s just like someone hit the reset button. You know. Before our lives all went to shit.”

“Wait, so, you’re taking advantage of me? Is that what you’re saying?” Matt stumbles a little as they walk, but he recovers before Foggy notices. Matt presses his lips together, because Foggy’s found a loophole, all right.

“No! Well, maybe? I don’t know, Matt I just--”

“—whoa,” Matt says, as his legs buckle from under him. Foggy’s quick to catch him though, and they stumble toward the nearest alley before anyone else sees. 

“God, you’re burning up,” Foggy mutters, and Matt slips out of his reach, props himself up against a grimy brick wall, and starts disrobing as fast as he can. “Holy--! Matt! What the hell are you doing?! You can’t just--”

“The ground’s soaking wet, Foggy,” he says, as he hands Foggy his water-logged jacket, his still mostly dry shirt. His socks are a loss as he pulls off his shoes, but Foggy will have a mostly complete outfit to take with him. At least Matt’s able to get his pants all the way off before he slips and falls and falls and falls.

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: character opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the author. Or, no disrespect intended toward Phish heads. :P

*  


In his haste, Matt doesn’t notice Foggy in the doorway. 

“Whoa, dude! Where’s the fire,” Foggy says as he heads off a near collision, and Matt… wrenches away from him.

“Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with you.”

“Sorry,” he says, grimacing, because he knows how unfair that is. This isn’t the Foggy he’d just left behind in that alley, rain-soaked and confessing how he prefers Matt as his is now, young and unsullied by life, rather than the Matt he’s contemporary with. With Matt after he fucks it all up. So he runs his fingers through his now dry and flattened hair, and adds, “running late,” because poor Foggy doesn’t have any of that context. Plus, there’s the benefit of it actually being true. He is running late, because his return trip had dropped him off in the present well into mid-morning, and because of it he’s managed to miss two classes already. And if he doesn’t hurry it up and hustle, he’s going to be late for the next class, too. He claps Foggy on the shoulder as he slides past him, says, “I’ll see you later,” and absolutely hauls ass, ignoring the pull on his abdomen and on his back where all the bandaging and stitches had been. All his half-healed wounds ripped open, and all of Claire’s careful patchwork attention puddled in a bloody heap in a wet alley on a rainy night sometime in the near future.

Once he gets there, Matt spills into the classroom, and flows in with the rest of the wave of pouring students. He melts into his seat, sits up straight and at full attention, and pretends nothing is amiss. 

*

“I can’t keep doing this,” he mutters, when he finds himself pressed face down on the cold, urine-soaked tiled floor. He’s pretty sure he’s in the men’s room just down the hall from his dorm room, and he finds the irony of his situation so hilarious that he wants to physically break down and cry. “It’s _time,_ not distance,” he forces himself to say as he half-heartedly punches at the ground beneath him. There’s something that exists in the murky depths of his very soul that aches for him to stay here like this; to stay sprawled out on the bathroom floor, to be found here cold and naked and reeking of pee. But he doesn’t. He slowly stands and opens up his focus to check the vents, the other stalls, under the bank of sinks, and curses himself for not planning ahead. How he’s avoided developing a reputation as campus streaker by now, he will never know.

But he manages, he always does. He waits until the hallway is empty; he’s not sure what time of day it is, or even when he is, but it’s quiet. There’s no one out roaming the halls, anyway. A few people are milling around in their own rooms, but it’s all subdued. Someone’s watching a movie with a lot of orchestration and no dialog; someone else is playing a live Phish record a little too loud (and yes, he absolutely is judging them for it. There’s no excuse. Get better taste in music.) Other than that though, it’s quiet enough that Matt’s able to slip into his room unnoticed, dress, and check his device for the time and date. He throws his head back and groans, because it’s only a few hours later that night. And he doesn’t know where he and Foggy are. So he crawls into bed, and hopes maybe he’ll travel in his sleep. 

Which, turns out, is a terrible thing to wish for. He’s violently woken up by what has to be the world’s worst charley horse, except lucky for him, it isn’t just a calf muscle that cramps and spasms. No, of course not, that would be too easy. Instead, it’s every single fucking muscle in his entire fucking body; and he ends up back face-first on the piss-soaked men’s room floor anyway. Because life is awesome like that.

*

Later that night, Foggy’s out on a date--he’d apparently scored a couple of tickets to some weird off-Broadway thing. It was a gracious offer, but Matt ended up turning him down. It just didn’t sound like his thing. So instead, Matt heads to the library to catch up on his reading, because a night of fighting himself for the covers of his twin-sized bed is something he really could do without.  

*

And Matt travels. In the span of just a few short months, he finds himself more than once on Claire’s couch (and on one memorable occasion, materializing right in her bedroom as she slept. Apparently it was her one and only day off that week, so needless to say, she hadn’t exactly appreciated his intrusion); or shivering on a hard, cold pew in the back of an empty church; or nearly colliding with a distracted Foggy out on the street as he gabs on the phone (to his present self, Matt can’t help but to notice); at the car crash, at the car crash, at the car crash; or standing next to a hospital bed, holding his own thin and tiny hand as the younger version of himself writhes and screams in pain. And then there’s all these little bullshit trips: half an hour later here, or two hours ago there. And as all this goes on, he starts missing classes.

And he can’t do this anymore. He just can’t. Why he ever thought he could navigate college life with his… with his _condition_ he will never know. When he has a moment, when he’s standing alone in his room, he flies over to his desk and plucks up all his books. He doesn’t hesitate; he just screams something deep and guttural, and hurls them, all hard and fast, each one, one at a time, and they make a satisfying thud as they collide into the wall before flopping onto the carpet. When it’s all done, when there’s nothing else left to throw, he breathes out and curses, because the brief satisfaction he felt in that short burst of violence is immediately replaced with the sharp pang of guilt and regret. Braille books are expensive, and not all of them are his, so despite the hour, he carefully sets about picking them up, neatly placing each one back on his desk where they belong. Then he makes a quick phone call before sneaking out to hop on the subway. 

*

The train is crowded, more crowded than he’d expected for this time of night, and it’s hot and sweaty and bursting with people, but it’s good. Swallowed up in the crush of moving people with all their sounds and smells, and it’s a lot, but it’s good. And this is how he ends up back at Fogwell’s, shaking hands with a man who now owns the place, telling him how he remembers his dad (“everyone does. We all do. Anything for ol’ Jack’s kid.”) Matt jokes that maybe one day, maybe when he’s rich and famous, he’ll buy the place himself. He’s rewarded with a deep laugh, a hard clap on the back, and an open-door invitation to come by and use the place whenever he wants. 

*

And for the first time in months, Matt stays firmly in the present.

Coming to the gym and working out becomes a familiar and steady routine, and it grounds him like nothing ever has. He doesn’t think it’s from the physical exertion alone. He used to… train as a kid, and it didn’t help any then; he was as out of control then as he’d ever been. Maybe, then, the key is in the ritual of the whole thing: the sneaking out and riding the subway; the smell of the gym, the sound of his fists as they pound against the heavy bag, the honesty of it, the stripping away of all his pretenses. 

But it’s not a cure, and he doesn’t expect it to be one. He still travels, here and there, but the intensity of it, the manic pace he’s had to endure these many months slows down enough that he’s able to breath and focus on his work, and frankly, it’s a relief. And for the first time in a long time, he starts to really thrive. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, he reminds himself. The finish line might still feel very far from where he’s standing, but maybe, just maybe he really will make it.

And Matt makes it a point to be more present whenever Foggy’s around. Especially when his mind wonders back to Foggy-in-the-future. These obsessive thoughts just aren’t helpful, in fact, they’re actively getting in the way, if he’s completely honest with himself. And he wants to get out in front of that, if he possibly can.

For his part, Foggy seems largely unfazed by Matt’s habit of slinking back to their room in the wee hours of the morning. And all the jokes about his “man-whore” status (Foggy’s term, not his) have all but dried up. Matt’s not sure if Foggy suspects what he’s really up to, and to be honest, he doesn’t actually care. If Foggy asks, Matt’ll fess up, but he never does.

*

For Foggy’s twenty-first birthday, he spends the night with Marci. For Matt’s, Foggy takes him to Josie’s.

They settle into the seats at the far end of the bar, the same one’s as last time, and Matt half expects Foggy to reach behind the counter himself, grab a pair of glasses and a bottle of Josie’s finest hell-broth. But of course he doesn’t. Foggy’s taken Matt here because he’s just discovered it, or heard of it, or something, and has high hopes of making it “our place.” Matt swallows his smile and buttons his lip, because tonight, he has no intention of stealing any of Foggy’s thunder.

Several drinks later, Matt’s feeling warm and loose-limbed. Jiggly, like Jell-O. Boozy Jell-O. Ha. Foggy throws an arm around Matt’s shoulders, and Matt holds his breath as Foggy loudly proclaims his true and undying love for his bestest best friend in the whole entire world to all and sundry. He slowly, oh so slowly brings Matt’s head in close to his own, and then… fakes out the kiss. Makes a wet smacking sound next to his ear, instead. Matt throws his head back, laughs like he knows it’s all just a harmless joke, and pretends he doesn’t want otherwise.

*

The next time he travels, it’s largely boring and uneventful. He’s in a large field littered with metal folding chairs; most of them are still standing neatly in rows, but some of them are tipped over haphazardly, or lying flat on the freshly mown lawn. He’s sitting somewhere in the middle of the last row, wearing a discarded robe and cap he’d found somewhere near his chair. There’s a surprising number of them still strewn about, some draped over the backs of chairs, or crumpled on the grass like shed skin. There’s a lot of litter, too, wrappers and plastic cups and such. Except for a small cluster of graduates milling about in front of and just to the side of the main stage, the field is empty, eerily devoid of anyone else.

Which is how he’s able to pick out Foggy approaching him. Matt lifts his head and smiles in his general direction as Foggy picks up a fallen chair and props it up next to Matt.  
“Congrats, buddy! We made it!”

“Well, you did, anyway,” Matt says.

“Technically we both did.”

“Technically.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says. He breathes out hard through his nose before continuing, “I couldn’t convince you to come over to say ‘hi’ with me.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” Matt says. “It isn’t anything bad, I’m just trying to better stay in the present.”

“Ha,” Foggy says. “There’s a few ways you could read that.”

“Which is why I’m making the effort. It’s helping, but obviously it’s not fool-proof.” He gestures toward himself to indicate, _I’m here anyway, aren’t I?_

“Yeah, well. The sky is blue, water’s wet, and Matt Murdock time travels.”

Matt shrugs.

“Interested in coming out drinking with us?”

“What, you and me… and me?”

“You could say you’re your brother or something.”

“I’m an orphan, Foggy, remember?”

“Okay, long-lost brother.”

“Hey. That reminds me. Has that show you watch started yet? What was is called?”

“No clue.”

“I don’t know what it is. About a guy who’s an orphan clone? Or something. You compared me to it.”

“I guess not,” Foggy says blandly.

“Never mind. Forget it.” Matt sighs and slumps in his chair.

“Hey. You okay? You seem kinda… I dunno. Off.”

“Yeah. I’m okay. Oh, hey, Foggy. I didn’t say congrats. I really am proud of you.”

“Thanks, buddy. Me too. I know you’re not there yet, but it still counts." Foggy claps Matt on the shoulder before wandering off, and Matt ends up staying in the metal chair and in his borrowed robe well into the night. 

*

 


	8. Chapter 8

*  
“Weirdest thing happened to me today,” Foggy says. Matt’s got his back propped up against his bed, with Foggy’s head resting comfortably against his stomach, and just outside their cozy room, the sound of steady rain provides a nice, soothing blanket of white noise. The fact that they’re both more than a little inebriated just adds to the coziness of it all.

And because Foggy’s head is _right there_ in his lap, in such a trusting and vulnerable position, Matt can’t help but to pretend to fumble his empty beer can over Foggy’s head. Just because he can.

“Such an asshole,” Foggy says with a small laugh. Matt grins innocently at him.

“Whoops, sorry,” Matt says, as he pretends to fumble it again. He laughs as he finally sets the offending can firmly on the floor somewhere near his leg. 

Foggy lifts his up head and pats down his hair, and huffs like he’s worried that some of Matt’s stale beer actually spilled on him. Matt grumbles about losing contact with that beautiful body heat, but Foggy just snorts at him, clearly not able to muster a single ounce of sympathy for his plight. Matt imagines there’s probably a good deal of eye-rolling to go along with it, too.

After a minute or two, after he’s situated himself upright, with his back propped up against the side of the bed, same as Matt, he notices a sizable gap between their bodies. It feels like a wide, gaping gulf, and Matt is tempted, oh so tempted to move closer to him, just to regain what he’d lost. But he doesn’t. He just leans his head back as Foggy continues: “so. I’m coming out of that bakery, you know, the one across the street from St. Agnes’ daycare? Oh my god, Matt, they make these _amazing_ \--”

Sitting up straight, he says, “Wait. You were in the Kitchen?”

Foggy’s quiet for what feels like a long time. Glaring at him, probably. Then: “If you’d let me finish my story…”

Matt grimaces. “Sorry,” he says, “just you don’t usually…” Matt trails off, because has no room whatsoever to question Foggy about his comings and goings. “Forget it.” 

“Anyway,” Foggy says, “as I was saying, before Mister Buttinski over here oh so rudely interrupted: I thought I’d go down there to get one of those strawberry shortcake cupcakes. I’d been hardcore craving them for like a solid week, and I kept putting it off, you know, because of how ridiculous an indulgence it is. But let me tell ya. After the week I’ve had, I figured why the hell not. I deserve a nice treat every once in a while.”

“Sure,” Matt agrees.

“Oh! That reminds me!” Now Foggy’s gesturing emphatically at him, and Matt tries not to laugh. Foggy’s enthusiasm is pretty infectious. “I totally got one for you, too, but,” he pauses to scratch behind his ear, “yours didn’t exactly make it back. Sorry, dude.” 

“Eh,” he says, smiling. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Anyway. So, now I’m not two feet outside the bakery, right, when this kid—who, by the way, comes out of friggen nowhere—smacks right into me. _Boom._ ” And here Foggy soundlessly claps his hands together to indicate a collision. “Now, I’m not the type of guy who yells at dumbass kids for not watching where they’re going, but I was seriously tempted; I mean, yeah, I would have been pretty pissed if my freshly procured slice of strawberry heaven got ruined because of some dumb kid, but it wouldn’t have been the end of the world or anything.”

“Very magnanimous of you.”

“See? You know what’s up. And, turned out it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, they got all squished together in a big ol’ ooey-gooey mess, but we managed just fine.”  


“Oh?”

“Right! Getting ahead of myself here. So it’s just me and this kid on the sidewalk outside the bakery—and you should’ve seen him, Matt. I mean, the kid was just a _mess._ Clothes that looked like he fished them out of the garbage, and everything.” Foggy’s quiet for long moment, then: “he didn’t even have any shoes on, you know? And. That’s not even the weird part. Not that I’m trying to imply this is weird! In any way. You have to promise me you won’t take it that way.”  
   
“Me? Why would I--”

“No, just… okay, so, there I am, right, sticking my paw out at him,” and Foggy illustrates this by thrusting his hand out toward Matt’s chest. He resolutely does not react to it. “But he just makes this scrunched up face at me, like he’s confused or something. I mean, what’s confusing about a handshake, let me ask you.”

Matt shakes his head. He doesn’t know. (Except for when he does.)

“And… that’s when I notice that he’s not actually _looking_ at me. And he has that same exact--” Foggy coughs. “Because he’s, you know. Blind.”

And Matt’s stomach flops over. “Being blind’s not weird, Foggy,” he says, trying not to choke on his own words.

“And I’m not saying it is!” Foggy says, seemly oblivious to the minefield he’s stepped into.  “I mean, give me some credit here.”

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” Matt tries. “Um, so… anyway.”

“Yeah, so. Homeless blind kid. I thought about calling you, too, but, I um. Thought that it might be... weird. Or a little insensitive or something.” Foggy pushes himself up to grab the rest of the six-pack still sitting on his nightstand, then wordlessly presses a can in Matt’s hand before reclaiming his spot on the floor. 

“How would it be insensitive,” he says, as he starts plucking the pull tab with his thumb and index finger. 

Foggy breathes out, says, “I don’t know.” He pauses for a long time. “I didn’t want you to think—or I didn’t want _him_ to think—but it doesn’t matter because I _didn’t._ ”  
Matt presses his lips together. Sets down the unopened can, and lets his shoulders sag and his hands pool loosely in his lap.

His memories about this whole thing are incredibly gauzy, in that strange way long forgotten memories often are, but he does remember it. There was this time once, when he was a kid. He (literally) ran into this man who told him that he wanted to help him. And he knew how adults would sometimes materialize into his life with offers of help that ended up being anything but, so he knew to be wary, but the man was funny, and kind, and _honest,_ and he knew that was a rare thing. So, Matt agreed to go with him, even though somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this could be a trick, or a some kind of test. But he could take the man down if it ever came to that. He knew he could.  


And even if it hadn’t been a trick or a test, that kind of indulgence could still get him into a lot of trouble. There wasn’t a single reason anyone else needed to know about it, especially not… so he wrapped the moment up tight, squirreled it away deep in his ribcage, somewhere near his heart where no one could ever steal it from him. It was stupid, he knew it was, maybe even childish, but there was so little that just belonged to him, and only him.

So he sat outside the bakery at a tiny round table (because of his lack of shoes) with the kind and generous man, and together they ate these enormous gourmet cupcakes, with strawberries so fat and gooey they had to eat them with forks. Actual silverware, even, not plastic ones. 

And now it turns out that his kind benefactor is none other than Franklin Nelson: broke college kid. 

“Small world,” Matt mutters, and then shakes his head to mean _‘never mind’_ when Foggy makes an inquisitive noise at him.

“So what’s the weird part,” he says, trying not to sound resigned to fate.

Foggy tells him all about the thrilling adventure of taking the kid across the street to speak to the kind folks in the administration office at St. Agnes’ daycare--Matt has no memory of this part of the story—even though he knew the kid had to have been too old for daycare. “It was just so strange. He kept _insisting_ that I just leave him there. I mean, then the lady at the desk basically kicked us out when it was clear we didn’t belong there, and I felt just awful, Matt, you have no idea.”

Matt just shrugs. He really doesn’t remember this little side trip, and even if he did, what could he possibly say about it? _‘I was that kid, and at the time I didn’t know the orphanage had closed and become a daycare?’_ Obviously not.

“And that’s why you gave him my cupcake,” he says, all faux-incredulity.

“Yes! I… Wait. How did you--”

“Just a guess.”

Quietly Foggy says, “I owe you a cupcake.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he starts to say, but cuts himself off mid-sentence when he picks up a familiar heartbeat somewhere just outside their door. He moves his hand across to his other wrist to check his pulse, and sure enough, the two beat in time.

_“Shit,”_ he mutters, and he’s on his feet before he even realizes it. He casts around for any wayward clothing still left of the floor, and when he comes up empty, rushes across the room to his dresser to paw through his clothes.

“Matt! What the hell’s--” Foggy starts to say just as he plucks out the first t-shirt his probing hands land on. In the hallway, just outside their room there’s a loud _thud_ and a second later the doorknob turns and the hinges groan as the door swings open. “Hey, pal, you’ve got the wrong,” and the door shuts behind a wet and naked Matt as he presses his full body weight against it. “Room,” Foggy finishes weakly.

Other Matt rushes over and grabs the shirt still dangling from Matt’s hand, starts pulling it over his head as he says all in a rush, “God, I’m really sorry, but I’m cold and wet and--”

“Behind the bushes?” Matt asks.

“Yeah. Every damn time.”

Foggy’s vital signs are a riot of confusion and panic, and once his breathing levels out, he mutters, “What the hell was in that beer?”

“You aren’t hallucinating,” Other Matt says as he shimmies into a pair of jeans. He seems to be struggling with them for some reason, and confirms it when he mutters, “why are these so tight.” 

“Jesus! You even _sound_ \--”

“So,” Matt interrupts, “how should we--”

Other Matt stands up straight and tugs at his shirt. Smacks Matt’s upper arm and says, “you can do it next time,” which is just about the worst joke ever.

Foggy’s bed groans under his weight as he drops himself down onto it. "You never said you had a brother,” he says carefully, as if the very ground might drop out from under him if he so much as breathed wrong.

“I don’t have any family, Foggy,” Other Matt mutters. “You know that.”

“Okay,” Matt starts to say, but has to cut himself off as he doubles over. A monster headache blooms and spreads, and through it he manages to spit out, “Jesus, now?” His stomach clenches hard and he’s going to end up vomiting everywhere, he just knows it.

“Yeah, sorry,” Other Matt says.

“What the fuck is happening!”

“Fog, I’m so sorry,” Matt says through clenched teeth. He’s on the floor, curled in on himself, and is just bracing for it. Here it comes, any second. “But Foggy, I’m not going anywhere, you have to believe me. Just… let me explain everything,” he says as he tries to move his arm in his other self’s general direction. “Will you let me do that? Please?” He tries not to groan from the pain as the pressure in and around his body builds and builds, but it doesn’t work, and he knows he’s scaring Foggy, but he can’t help it. He can’t. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and the last thing he hears is Foggy screaming out his name.

*

“Ow,” Matt says after he bangs his head up against something solid. He curses under his breath for trying to get himself upright before getting a better feel for his surroundings, which is like, Time Travel 101. He knows better than that.

“Matt?” It’s Foggy. Because of course it is. Who else would it be. It’s not as if their lives are irrevocably intertwined, or anything. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, I just—am I under a table?”

Foggy laughs from the next room, makes a lot of shuffling noises, and then he’s standing in front of him, framed in the doorway of whatever room Matt’s currently in. “Do you know where you are?”

“I, uh. No. Well, under a table, apparently.” He crawls out, the floor hard on his knees, and it’s a little awkward once he emerges and stands, but Foggy’s on top of the situation because he’s as just as much of a pro at this as Matt is; he’s handing Matt a long piece of clothing, a coat, he thinks, before he even needs to ask. “Thanks,” he mutters as he shrugs into it. It’s just barely long enough to cover him, but he knows how to make do in an awkward situation.

“You know, maybe we should think about keeping a set of spare clothes around here, seeing how we’re going to be spending a real lot of time here from now on.” Foggy sounds proud. And hopeful. 

“Is this… is this Nelson and Murdock?” He can’t help the wonder from his voice.

Foggy is practically bouncing. “This is your first time here, huh. Oh, man, you gotta let me give you the grand tour.”

Matt beams at him. 

“So, this is the conference room,” which explains the large table, “and out here we’re gonna eventually get a real office desk,” the main room (lobby, maybe?) has a very nice card table and a couple of metal folding chairs. They cross to an office with a desk, “this is me,” cross again, back the way they came, “and this is you.” 

When he finds his Braille terminal, he feels like someone’s squeezed all the air from his lungs. “This is real. Oh my god, Foggy, this is--” 

“I know! It’s great, right? We literally just opened shop. Got a sweet deal on the place, too.”

“How _do_ we afford this kind of office space?” Matt says as they move over to the card table. Matt has to readjust the coat a bit when he sits, but he doesn’t think Foggy’ll be able to see anything. And besides, it’s not like he’s never seen Matt before… “Hell’s Kitchen is gentrifying,” he continues, “I would have assumed we’d be priced out.”

“Yeah, well, that was true when we were back in coll— oh shit, is that when you’re coming from?”

“Yeah. I am, but--”

Foggy shakes his head. “Trust me on this one. Your usual brand of out-of-contextness is not your friend here,” which is Foggy-speak for ‘I’m not really up for talking about it.’ Which is fair, he supposes.

After some time, Foggy proposes ordering take-out, so Matt says, “you don’t have stay and babysit, if you have somewhere else you need to be.”

“Who’s babysitting?” he says. “Actually, do you know who is babysitting right now? You are,” Foggy says, gesturing toward Matt.

“Somehow I find that unlikely.”

“Okay, yeah, ‘babysitting’ is probably kind of inappropriate, considering, but our client is staying at your place until this whole thing blows over. And I’m sure you’re being a perfect gentleman about it.”

Matt raises his eyebrows at that. It’s probably best he doesn’t know. “So, that explains why you haven’t offered to drop me off. I mean, besides the fact that I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion.” 

Foggy’s quiet for a long moment. “Did you want me to? Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me you’d want that. I mean, you don’t actually live there yet.”

“I’ve been there a few times now.”

“Huh. I’ll keep that in mind. So. Tell me about when you’re coming from.”

*


	9. Chapter 9

*

Foggy’s usually sound asleep by the time Matt sneaks back in from his clandestine trips to Fogwell’s. Except for tonight, which honestly, he should have expected. Well, he can’t avoid Foggy forever. If he were avoiding Foggy, that is. Which he’s not. He’s just been keeping to his workout routine, whether he’s had to travel that day or not. Honest.

He takes a fortifying breath and squares back his shoulders, because judging from what he can read from Foggy, Matt’s presence just outside their door has him in a near panic. 

“It’s just me,” he says, sticking just his head in before entering the room more fully. He offers a reassuring smile, but it doesn’t help, not one bit. 

 “Matt?” Foggy’s voice shakes on his name, small and unsteady, and he knows Foggy’s terrified. He’s terrified of Matt.

“Yeah, it’s just me,” he says again, and just readies himself for bed like nothing’s out of the ordinary, like nothing’s changed, because he cannot deal with this right now, he just can’t. “G’night, Fog.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Matt. Goodnight.”

*

The following Saturday: “I am not even exaggerating, dude. This week’s been so rough, my anxiety has anxiety. You can’t see it, but my hands are actually shaking right now, that’s how bad it is.” 

Foggy holds out one of his hands as if to demonstrate said shakiness, then immediately brings them both up to his face to blow on them before shoving them deep into his coat pockets. 

“You should have worn your gloves,” Matt mutters as he briefly frees his own hand from Foggy’s elbow to readjust his scarf, tighten his coat, but Foggy just shrugs. _Too late to worry about that now._

It’s mid-September, and they’re taking a stroll through Central Park—Matt’s idea—to clear the air. Matt had suggested that they probably should talk about what happened some place other than in the enclosed space of their shared room. Some kind of neutral ground where the reminder of Matt’s fucked up biology wasn’t some kind of palpable weight hanging over their heads. Foggy tried not to sound relieved when Matt floated the idea, and Matt tried not to take that kind of reaction personally.

 “I don’t understand how you’re not freaking out about this, too,” Foggy continues. “Like, okay, I get it. You’re all Mister Calm-Cool-and-Collected or whatever, but come on. Be real with me for a minute. You’re shitting just as many bricks as I am, you’re just better at hiding it.”

“I’m really not,” Matt says with a small shrug. “You’ve taken the practice, right?” 

Foggy groans. “It’s bad, Matt. I’m gonna fail so hard. Do you know what doesn’t require an admission test? A butcher shop, that’s what. The LSAT’s gonna kick my ass and steal my lunch money while it’s at it, but hey. Who needs to get into law school when you have the promise of quality meats to fall back on?” 

Matt laughs. “I’m sure they don’t just hand you a butcher’s knife without some kind of training first. But I wouldn’t worry about it. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

Foggy stops short, and Matt nearly collides into him. “That’s not just some empty platitude, is it,” he says slowly. “You actually _know_.”

Matt opens and closes his mouth several times before he finds the words he wants. “I mean, I don’t know the details of the test itself, no.”

“But you do _know_.”

“I uh. I know you graduate law school. I know you become a brilliant attorney. I know we go on to do ‘great work’.”

“We.”

“Yeah, um we have our own--”

“--Murdock and Nelson?”

“The other way around, actually.” 

“There’s a bench up ahead,” Foggy mutters. “Let’s go sit.”

From his pocket, Foggy pulls out a cloth or a napkin of some kind, and wipes down the bench before sitting. “Still a little wet,” he mutters.

Cold too, he finds. Matt leaves enough space between their bodies so he doesn’t spook Foggy, and picks at the buttons on his coat as he waits for Foggy to grab hold of the reins of their conversation and steer it in whichever direction he’s most comfortable with.

Except neither one speaks for what feels like a long time. 

Matt spreads out his hands. _Well, I’m waiting_ , it means, and Foggy makes some kind of unhappy noise at him.

“I haven’t been able to sleep since--” 

Matt keeps his head aimed at the ground.

“—that night, when you… Jesus, Matt.”

“I didn’t want—this isn’t how I wanted--”

“No, I know. Just. Jesus. I’m having fucking nightmares. Did you know that? That night you were screaming, Matt, and then you just _vanished_ right in front of me. And there was that other… That was you? For real. Really, really you.”

Matt just nods, still keeping his head down.

“He touched your arm and the next thing I know, you’re on the floor writhing in agony. Then _poof_! Bye-bye Matt.”

“But I explained it all to you, right? It doesn’t have anything to do with… touching. I can exist in the same space--”

“Yeah, he… or you? Or. Fuck. How do personal pronouns even work,” and Matt can’t help a startled laugh at that, and Foggy shrugs. “Yeah, he explained it. Which did not help at first, let me tell you. When he started in with the ‘so I’m a time traveler’ spiel—and you better not laugh at me for this--I nearly shat my pants, because I thought I just witnessed my best friend’s annihilation because of a… I don’t know, a time paradox or some stupid sci-fi bullshit like that.”

Matt doesn’t react at all. Just continues to keep his head down. 

“I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Matt says. “Just… spectacularly bad timing.” 

“Yeah, that’s how he put it, too.”

“Well,” Matt says with a half-hearted smile. “That’s ‘cause we’re the same person.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says. “I just can’t wrap my head around it. I mean, how do you even do it?”

Matt breathes out. “It’s… it’s like epilepsy? Something inside my brain goes haywire, and I don't have any control over it, it just… it just happens, and I don’t always know what sets it off, but God, Foggy, it’s awful, you have no idea. I uh. I haven’t really read up on it or anything, but I do know that it’s an incredibly rare disorder. No more than five hundred documented cases, I think.”

“Five hundred cases of _people who can time travel_? Oh, is that all? Because that’s five hundred cases too many, if you ask me. But that’s not what I’m asking.”  
“So what are you asking.”

“Matt, you’re… I keep thinking about you out there all alone some place, and, I mean, how do you get around, how do you survive like that when you can’t even… I mean, you’re… When I’m not having nightmares about you _literally vanishing into thin air_ , I’m full out panicking at the thought of you out there in another time, cold and alone. It’s terrifying, Matt. I’m scared for you. All the time now.”

“Foggy,” Matt says, his voice breaking on his friend’s name. He wants to cover Foggy’s hand with his own, offer him some kind of physical comfort. Instead, he says, “I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, you don’t… you don’t have to worry about me.”

“How can I not, though? And… you said there are documented cases? That must mean there’s research out there, medication, maybe. Why aren’t you looking into that? If there are people out there—doctors, scientists—who know about this stuff, people who could help--”

“No, absolutely not. I am not subjecting myself to… to tests, and drugs, and. No. I refuse.”

“But, Matt--”

“You have to promise me something, Foggy. You can’t tell anyone else about this. You can’t tell anyone, and you can’t ask… I won’t—don’t ask me to do things--I won’t give you winning lottery numbers, or that kind of thing, so. And don’t ask me to change things, either. I don’t actually know if it’s even possible to change things, I haven’t actually tried, but please. Don’t ask it of me.”

“Jesus, I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, forcing out a hard breath. “It’s happened before.” What was it Foggy called him? Evil David Carradine? It’s not often Matt’s grateful he can’t actually control it, but when he thinks back to when he was a kid, to what he was actually being trained for, he knows he seriously dodged a bullet.

Foggy elbows him in the rib. “So, no tips on the stock market?”

Matt tilts his head up. “No, sorry.”

“Damn, what’s the point of having a cool ability if you’re not even gonna cash in on it.”

“‘Cool ability.’ Sure.”

“It is pretty cool, you gotta admit. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it might actually kind of suck a lot of the time, but,” Foggy shrugs. “Gotta take the good with the bad, right?”  


“More like yet another thing I just have to deal with.”

“Like being blind.”

“That, too.”

They’re both quiet for a long time. Then Foggy says, “my butt’s cold. Your butt cold?”

Matt laughs. “It is pretty chilly.”

“We should head back.”

Matt stills. “You really want to go back?”

“Yeah,” Foggy says. “I think I do.”

*

When he shuts the door behind him, Foggy says, “What do you call it when you, you know, go _poof_!”

“Um. Poof?” Matt sets his cane in its spot near the door, and readies for bed.

Foggy kicks off his covers and swings his legs around so they’re hanging over the side of the bed. “Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”  


Matt sighs as he crawls into his own bed. “I don’t call it anything special. Why do you ask.”

“No reason.”

“Foggy.”

“Okay, just. You don’t… time travel every day, do you? I mean, ‘cause that seems like a lot.”

“No, no. That would be a lot. I’d never get anything done in the present.”

Even at the worst point of his manic spell, it wasn’t as often as daily. He tries not to shudder, because that had been bad enough.

 “Well, that’s good, then. I’m glad. It’s just… you disappear for hours on end, and then you’re sneaking back in at stupid o’clock in the morning. So I thought that maybe time travel was a daily thing for you.”

“No,” Matt says quietly. “You’re right. I do. I sneak out. I’m sorry for--”

“It’s to work out, isn’t it.”

“What?” Matt says, startled.

“You sneak off somewhere to work out.”

 “What? Um, no! Why would you--”

 “Matt, it’s okay. I’m not mad or anything.”

“…you aren’t?”

“God no. I saw how that’ll pay off for you. A-plus on those abs, by the way.”

“Um, okay? I’m glad you approve?”

“Not yet I don’t. Few years from now, though? Yeah, I can see it.” Matt’s momentarily mortified, then he’s holding in a sharp laugh, because Foggy has no idea how true that it. Or maybe he does. God, that old fantasy about going back and revisiting that future version of Foggy hits him full force now, and he half hopes he’ll travel right now, just to hide his embarrassment.

“I get it, I think. If you were too self-conscious to tell me what you were up to before, well. Now you don’t have to worry about it. Maybe you can even show me some time.”  


“Yeah,” he says, “okay, sure.” 

 “Cool,” Foggy says. Then: “Goodnight, Matt.”

“’night, Foggy.”

*


	10. Chapter 10

*

When it finally comes time for them to move out of their cramped and cozy dorm room and into a more spacious two-bedroom unit of their very own, Foggy says he feels like a real-live grown up, and Matt just feels vaguely disappointed. He’s not sure when he started thinking of his future apartment as his, and knows that everything happens when it’s supposed to, but a part of him had hoped he’d get there sooner, rather than later. (Though if he’s honest with himself, it isn’t just the apartment that Matt’s impatiently waiting to catch up with with.) But they settle in just fine, like the cool grown-ups that they are. Foggy calls in a pair of cousins who apparently owe him a couple of favors to help them with the move, leaving Matt feeling like an enormous asshole because he isn’t helping out to the full extent of his abilities. But. Matt’s not actually ready to explain to Foggy everything he can do, let alone to cousins of his that Matt’s never met before. It would just be weird and awkward, and he really doesn't want that kind of attention. That's a bridge he'll have to burn once he gets to it.    


After all the boxes have been brought in, and after the guys end up declining Foggy’s generous offer of pizza for helping them out, (though they do take him up on the beer) Matt and Foggy are left standing alone in their brand-new place with half their stuff put away, and their whole lives ahead of them.  


   
Foggy orders the pizza anyway, and as they eat, Matt’s surprised by how subdued Foggy seems.  
   
Matt connects his foot to Foggy’s shin before his brooding silence has the chance to become too weighted and heavy.  
   
“Huh, what?” Foggy says, startled out of whatever thoughts Matt had interrupted. He seems to remember all at once that they’re sitting down to pizza at their new fancy card table, in their new fancy apartment, because he wipes his mouth with a napkin before moving to clean up the scattered remains of their meal.  
   
“Let me help,” Matt mutters.  
   
“You can put the pizza box in the fridge,” Foggy says, still sounding oddly downbeat. Matt furrows his eyebrows at him, because this is Foggy Nelson they’re talking about, the perpetual optimist, Mister Glass-Half-Full himself.  
   
Hands full, Matt gestures at Foggy with his chin before tossing the leftover pizza in the refrigerator as instructed.  
   
When Foggy sits back down at the table, he’s quiet for a long time. Matt reclaims his own seat, folds his hands in front of himself, and waits him out.  
   
“What if,” Foggy starts, and then waits a beat before continuing, “what if I wanted to get my law degree from Harvard?”  
   
Confused, Matt asks, “wait. You applied to Harvard?”  
   
“Of course I did! Didn’t you? At the very least?”  
   
“No,” Matt says, “I didn’t,” because honestly, it hadn’t even occurred to him. He graduates from Columbia, summa cum laude, even, why would he try for anywhere else?  
   
“See? And that’s what I’m talking about!” Foggy says, exploding from his chair. He nearly knocks it over before he starts pacing in the confined space of their living room.  
   
“I don’t know what we’re talking about here, Foggy. You’re gonna have to tell me.” Is Foggy regretting his life here? Is he regretting his life with Matt? He’s pretty sure he’s making a horrified face at this train of thought, and tries his best to school his features. He’s not sure how well he manages it.  
   
Foggy moves back to the table, but doesn’t retake his seat. He just stands behind his chair, clutching onto the back of it like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.  
   
He breathes out hard, hot garlicky breath hitting Matt square in the face. “Do I even get to have a say in my own life?” he says. His voice breaks, and Matt’s heart breaks with it.  
   
What’s this about, what is it Foggy really asking here.  
   
Then he realizes.  
   
_Free will._ That’s what this is about, he’s sure of it.  
   
He has an idea. It’s maybe not a very good one, but it’s an idea nonetheless, and he hopes it’ll do the trick.  
   
Matt gets up from the table and makes his way into the kitchen. Makes a show of feeling for the cabinets over the sink, before pulling down two drinking glasses and two coffee mugs. He fills one of the glasses and one of the mugs with tap water from the kitchen sink before filling the other glass and mug with milk from the fridge.  
   
“Do me a favor and take these to the table?”  
   
Foggy does, probably giving Matt a confused look the entire time, but he does it and he doesn’t say a single word. He just walks over to the counter, taking the glasses first, then making a second trip for the mugs. He sets them all down right in the center of the table’s surface, all bunched together like a some kind of decorative display.  
   
“Pretty thirsty, huh?” Foggy says. Matt grins at him, because he’ll take mild befuddlement over a looming existential crisis any day of the week.  
   
Matt comes over to sit at the table, and when he does, he gestures toward Foggy to do the same.  
   
“Yeah, this isn’t weird at all,” he says as he settles into his seat.  
   
“Go on,” Matt says. “Take one.”  
   
“Which one?”  
   
“Doesn’t matter. Whichever one you want.”  
   
“Okay, but. How do I know which is the right one?”  
   
“This isn’t a test, Foggy. Just pick the one you want. Water. Or milk. Glass or a mug. Your choice.”  
   
Foggy’s hand hovers over the cluster of beverages for a long moment. Probably trying to figure out Matt’s angle with this whole thing. He gestures at Foggy again. _Go on, make your choice already._  
   
Foggy sighs. Then settles on the coffee mug with the milk. He takes a small sip, then sets it down in front of him.  
   
“Yup, that sure was milk.”  
   
Matt reaches out for the glass of tap water and ends up just downing the whole thing. Foggy was right, turns out he was pretty thirsty. He grins at Foggy once he’s set his now empty glass back on the table.  
   
“Now imagine I came here and sat down with us at this very table, from say, I don’t know. Yesterday. So, now, because for me this present moment is also the past, I know which drink you ended up going with, because I have memory of it.”  
   
“Matt--”  
   
“Does that change anything?”  
   
“Yes! Of course it does! Because, then how do I know my choices are mine to make? How do I know that it isn’t all set in stone; that everything’s already predetermined? My choices aren’t actually mine, are they. I just think they are.”  
   
“But it is your choice. That’s my whole point. In that moment, you chose the milk. In the mug. Of all the options presented to you, you went with the one you did because it was the one you wanted. Whether I had foreknowledge or not doesn’t matter, because you’re the only one who could have made the decision in the first place.”  
   
“But your knowledge locks me into it. I’d have no other choice but to make the choice I did.”  
   
“That still doesn't stop you from having wants, and making choices based on those wants.”  
   
“This hurts my head. Life was so much easier before I knew… about all this stuff.”  
   
“Ignorance isn’t always bliss,” he says, trying not to laugh. He’s not laughing at Foggy, here, and he doesn’t want to come across as if he were, so he says, “I don’t know if you remember it, but we talked about this once. You didn’t seem to think it mattered if we have free will or not. We just had to live our lives as if we did.”  
   
Foggy’s quiet for a long time. Then he says, “but you believe we do. Even after everything you’ve been through.”  
   
“I do,” Matt says immediately and whole-heartedly. “I really do.”  
   
“Guess that just means one thing, Murdock.”  
   
“What’s that.”  
   
“You get to help me clean up all this stupidness.”  
   
“I suppose that’s only fair. And… Stupidness?”  
   
“Yes, stupidness. This little demo? Was a whole lot of stupid.”  
   
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”  
   
“You know, I'm not actually sure? I think I’m still deciding.”  
   
*  
   
Time travel, for Matt, has never represented any kind of larger calling or destiny. It isn't a thing bestowed upon him by divine Providence, nor is it a thing guided by it; it’s simply an error of nature, a genetic anomaly that had somehow managed to trick his brain into unsticking itself in time. Another thing in life he simply had to endure.  
   
But sometimes he wonders.  
   
At the best of times, Matt chooses to think about that asshole Stick as little as possible, but even Matt had to begrudgingly admit that the man had been right about one thing: the mind does in fact control the body. The problem, of course, is that Matt himself controls neither.  
   
He’s also pretty sure this was the real reason Stick had abandoned him all those years ago; if Matt could control his traveling, then Stick could control him. He used to talk about training him for some kind of war, the details of which he kept intentionally vague. But even then, Matt knew that having a time traveler in your arsenal made for a powerful advantage. And being shaped into a such a weapon was a fate he only very nearly avoided. It’s the reason he doesn’t like expending very much energy thinking about it, because the very thought of what he so easily could have become makes his stomach turn.  
   
And, in what turns out to be a pretty sick twist of fate, that very same training has helped him immensely in managing his condition for himself.  
   
That he’s able to navigate the rigors of law school by maintaining his nightly workout regimen is proof of it, and any bullshit traveling he’s had to contend with has mostly had minimal impact upon his day-to-day life.  
This has been the status quo long enough, for the past few years in fact, that it turned out to have been an incredibly easy thing to have taken for granted.  
   
It only takes one time, one single moment to upend that precious and precarious balance, and when it does, Matt can’t help but to think of God, and fate, and time, and what it means to be pointed in a direction and fired like a gun.  
   
*  
   
Tonight, Matt very nearly died. His friendship with Foggy most certainly did.  
   
He has no real way of knowing it, no outside perspective to verify it for him, but it’s pretty clear that everything up 'til now has been leading up to this moment.  
   
It starts out like any other slip in time to another moment in his life: fatigued from a long day of classes, and studying, and visiting Fogwell’s, and dealing with the cold and crowded subway on an icy January night (actually early morning, but who’s counting) and this all catches up with him before he can get to his usual cool-down routine of showering and meditating before heading to bed. Most of the time he can head off all of that beforehand, but tonight it just splinters into that familiar full-body horror show of a muscle cramp and a headache so intense he swears he hallucinates fucking colors in the split-second before he’s hurled into another place in time.  
   
When he gets there though, it’s nice and quiet. Peaceful. He’s in his future apartment, and he breathes out a sigh of relief, because by now he’s come to think of this place as home. And besides, any time he’s not out in the open and scrambling for something to cover up with is always a relief.  
   
Still, he's tired, and he wants to grab a quick shower before crawling into bed, whether it’s night time here or not.  
   
Turns out it is fairly late at night, and he hopes his present self won’t be home any time soon; he doesn’t like fighting himself for covers, though knowing him, Matt’ll just end up taking the couch instead battling needlessly for space in his own bed.  
   
An unexpected crash in the living room wakes him from a dead sleep, and it’s Matt, though maybe it’s him traveling, because he lands bodily on the floor with a loud thud and a deep groan like he’s in immense pain. It’s a groan he’s intimately acquainted with.  
   
Matt’s pretty sure his other self is unconscious, because he isn’t responding to pokes and prods, and then there’s all the blood. There’s so much of it, Matt doesn’t know—  
   
And while all this is going on, someone’s pounding on the door.  
   
“Dammit,” he mutters, because it’s Foggy.  
   
“Matt! Ma-att! Come on, we have to--” and God, he sounds like a drunken mess.  
   
“Just… Give me a second!” He tries not to sound panicked, but he doesn’t think he manages it. This is too much, this is…  
   
He runs his hands through his hair as Other Matt groans again, and Matt tries to get him to wake up while Foggy continues pounding on the door.  
   
When he finally gets his other self up and onto the couch, Other Matt grabs his arm, and pulls him down, hard. “Don’t—he can’t know. Don’t let him--”  
   
“Goddammit,” he mutters, and when he goes to open the door, he only opens it enough for him to stick his head through.  
   
“Hey. Fog,” he says, trying for casual. “Sorry. Caught me sleeping.” He pats down his hair hoping it’ll strengthen his case, and tosses Foggy a reassuring smile.  
   
Foggy’s vitals do something weird, so Matt makes a face at him.  
   
“You aren’t native,” he says slowly, like he’s puzzling something out.  
   
“What?” Matt tries, but the way his gut drops out from under him tells him just how busted he is.  
   
“No. You aren’t from here--”  
   
“—Foggy, come on. What are you… you’re being ridiculous. You know full well that I’m from Hell’s--”  
   
“No, Matt! You aren’t from here,” and he’s gesturing emphatically at the floor. “Not unless your hair’s grown out two inches since the last time I saw you, which was just this morning, Matthew! Also, is that blood?”  
   
Matt pats down the front of his t-shirt and brings his fingers up to his nose. Yeah, that’s blood all right.  
   
He opens his mouth to try to salvage this shit-show as best he can, and as he does, Other Matt lets out more pained and distressed noises.  
   
“Um! Yeah, okay. You’re right. I am traveling. But I really was sleeping, so if it’s okay with you, I’d kind of like to get back to bed now because--”  
   
“Was that just you in there? Move it, Matt. Move out of the way.”  
   
“No!” Matt says, as Other Matt practically whines out Foggy’s name.  
   
When Foggy finally pushes his way in, he lets out a long string of “holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!” when he comes across Matt’s bleeding and semi-conscious form lying flat on the couch.  
   
“What the fuck happened here?”  
   
“I don’t actually know,” Matt helpfully supplies.  
   
“Wrong one,” Foggy bites out. Then quieter he says, “what happened to you, Matt, what--” he pauses, and reaches down to the floor for a piece of cloth or something, and then start gesturing emphatically with it. All of Foggy’s vitals are a riot of confusion and anger and horror and… and betrayal.  
   
Tears are streaming down his face, because this is it, isn’t it? He doesn't have much context here, but he know that this is the moment he'd been dreading. Everything happens in its due time, and he knows that, he knows he couldn’t avoid this forever, but he hoped, he hoped…  
   
Now Other Matt is crying, too. “It’s not… it’s not what you think, Foggy,” he says, sounding a little too defensive, but his voice is weak and fading fast. It’s clear he’s not going stay conscious for very much longer.  
   
“I’m calling nine-one-one,” Foggy says, as he pulls his phone out from his pocket.  
   
Then a tussle ensues, with Other Matt somehow overpowering Foggy and convincing him to call Claire instead, and just as she arrives, Matt heads up to the roof to stay of her hair. Plus, there’s the fact that she doesn’t know about this part of him yet. Not for a few more months.  
   
He doesn’t know exactly how he ends up beaten and bloodied, but he does know that somehow, for some inexplicable reason, this is the life he chooses for himself. In his own time, Matt’s in law school studying criminal law and working toward becoming a defense attorney. And the thing is, he reaches that goal. He knows he does, because he’s seen it for himself. He and Foggy start up their own practice, hell, he’s even been to the office, and according to Foggy, they do some really great work during their time there. Until Matt fucks it all up, that is. And this. This right here is where it starts.  
   
And Matt just-- he can’t reconcile it. Something has to give here, and he just cannot fathom what that could possibly be.  
   
It’s nearly morning by the time Foggy trudges up the stairs, and Matt knows he isn’t going to enjoy this next part very much.  
Everything about Foggy’s body language speaks to how worn out and exhausted he is. How upset, confused, and betrayed he is. Like he’s screaming at Matt without uttering a single word.  
Matt carefully stands up and faces Foggy directly. Slowly strips out of his clothes, neatly folds them, and holds them out like an offering, because it’s the only thing he has to offer. He has no answers for his friend, and won’t have them for another three or four years, at the very least.  
   
Foggy doesn’t seem mollified when Matt points out that he won’t have to wait nearly that long for answers, he just has to go and wait for Matt-downstairs to wake up.  
   
And once Matt’s finally back in his own time, he crawls into bed and cries.  
   
He thinks back to his little demonstration of glasses and mugs and the discussion he and Foggy had at their kitchen table just a few hours prior, and he hates himself, hates his hubris, and hates that despite all his claims otherwise, he doesn’t actually know how any of this works.

*


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the use of a homophopic slur

*  
Violence isn't exactly a foreign concept for him, he thinks as he pummels the heavy bag he tends to favor whenever he’s here in the sweat-stale air of Fogwell’s gym. His own history is drenched in blood, a birthright passed down to him from father to son. That he’s comfortable here, that he was raised here in this very boxing gym speaks to that fact. _Careful of the Murdock boys…_

No, violence is something Matt understands very well. 

The sweat and the pain and the blood of physical exertion demand nothing less than naked honesty, and Matt knows he’s here tonight not only for his usual workout, but for a kind of reckoning, a stripping away of everything that’s been blocking him, everything that’s stopping him from... from seeing things for how they really are. 

He huffs out a small, bitter laugh, and a thin stream of sweat falls into his eyes. 

He doesn’t stop to wipe it away, though. He just keeps pounding on the bag like it has personally offended him. Keeps pounding and pounding and pounding, and if he punches the thing long enough, and hard enough, the truth will eventually spill out like the blood from his split and angry knuckles.

But no revelation offers itself, no grand truth opens before him.

Frustrated, he throws one last jab before moving over to the spot in front of the ring where he’d deposited his gym bag. Carefully unwraps his hands, mops up his face and the back of his neck with a towel, and has to make a conscious effort not to down all his water at once, lest he make himself sick.

Though his hands are still raw and swollen, he makes it a point to clean up after himself; makes sure any blood and sweat left on the heavy bag and anything else he might have come into contact with is meticulously wiped clean so that no evidence of his time here remains once he’s left for the night.

If the gym is a space that exists outside of time itself, the place where past and present (and very likely future) intertwine, then crossing over the threshold represents a return to his normal, everyday life. 

Locking the door behind him seals off that magic, and slipping on his glasses and unfolding his cane is the final act that brings him back fully into the real world.

But violence doesn’t just stay in the past. Of course it doesn’t. It’s everywhere, all the time, all at once. 

By the time Matt’s standing on the platform waiting for the next train to arrive--the same as everyone else down here--he finds himself wondering if he’s standing under one of the off hour waiting area signs. He remembers them from when he was a kid, though he’d read recently that the city’s started taking them down now that the crime rate was on the downtrend.

Which is good, except for the fact that just because subway crime is _falling,_ doesn’t mean it’s stopped altogether.

And tonight, he gets a first-hand demonstration of that fact.

When it’s this crowded down here, and it usually is, Matt needs to actively tune out most of the commotion just to function, just to retain some level of sanity. But one single crystal clear sound rises above everything else, and it slices straight through him, right to the heart of him, and it propels him into action without any real conscious thought.

It happens all at once:

A shouted slur of, “hey, faggot!” and the stink of anger from a man with a knife, and the tang of fear from two young men as he threatens them, and Matt runs, appearances be damned, and he has to push and shoulder his way through the crowd, hoping, praying he gets to them in time.

The sharp, metallic scent of blood tells him he doesn’t, but at least he’s able to connect his elbow to the asshole’s face and smash in his nose in the immediately after he's stabbed both of those kids. 

Behind him, the young couple both bleed and wail in shock and pain, and Matt finds himself momentarily frozen with indecision. Go after the asshole as he flees the scene like the coward he is, leaving behind a trail of blood so vivid to Matt’s senses it’s almost as if he’s _begging_ for Matt to go and hunt him down, or stay here and tend to these two hurt and upset kids. 

He yanks off his coat and kneels down beside them on the ground, and as he does, he can hear the cops and paramedics as they make their way towards them. 

“I’m sorry,” _I can’t stay here with you,_ he means, “but help’s coming.” And in a wet and tearful mix of English and Spanish, the kids… the kids _thank_ him.

Which… Why would they do that? Thank him? What for? He’d failed them. He wasn’t able to stop what happened to them because he wasn’t able to get to them in time…

He drapes his coat over them both as they huddle together, says to them, “take care of each other,” and then disappears into the press of a crowded train.

*

When he gets back to their place, Matt pauses in the doorway and breathes out through his nose because he’s sleeping on the couch and Foggy’s puttering around in the kitchen. 

“You didn’t have to wait up,” Matt half-whispers, because it’s incredibly late, bordering on incredibly early, and God knows sleep can be hard to come by when he’s traveling.

“Nah, dude,” Foggy says in that same half-whisper, tilting his head toward the couch. “No need to wait up for you when you’re already here.” 

“Can’t argue with that,” he says, as he fishes out a beer from the fridge. He raises his eyebrows at Foggy as he pops the cap with his thumb and knocks back most of it in one long pull.

Foggy huffs out in a way that Matt can’t decipher before carefully saying, “rough night?” 

Matt shrugs. 

“Jesus,” Foggy mutters. He’s quiet for a long moment, breathing in that way he does when he’s trying to decide on what to say next.

Matt sets his empty on the counter and moves to the sink, ostensibly to wash his hands. He’s waiting Foggy out, but doesn’t want it to look like he’s waiting him out.

He isn’t prepared for the shock of pain as the cold water burns over his still raw knuckles, and he must make some kind of face because Foggy uses that moment to say, “let me guess, I should see the other guy?” 

Well, he’s not wrong. But Matt just shakes his head. “No, nothing like that.” He shuts off the water, and carefully dries his hands. “Just got a little carried away,” he says, and half-heartedly moves into a basic boxing stance to illustrate his point.

On the couch, Other Matt shifts and pulls at his blanket. 

“Out like a light,” Foggy says. “You’re not coming from very far down the road, by the way. I could tell because your hands are still kinda fucked up.”

“They’ll heal,” Matt says, wincing a little as he works and stretches his sore knuckles. “Speaking of sleep…” he says, but first he wants a shower.

“Yeah, I probably should hit up on some of that shut-eye, too,” Foggy says, and just as Matt moves to open the bathroom door, Foggy says with an obvious smile in his voice, “hey. Just how many times in one night am I supposed to say goodnight to you, anyway.”

Grinning, Matt says, “as many times as you want to.”

“Well, in that case, goodnight, Matt.”

*

“Not very far down the road” turns out to be almost a week later, and at first, Matt doesn’t realize he’d even traveled. 

Generally, if you go to bed wearing pajamas, you tend to expect to still be wearing them when you wake up. Unless of course you’re Matt Murdock. Then sometimes you’ll just wake up naked. 

Plus, time travel is a pain, and not just in the figurative sense, so it’s pretty unusual for him to travel and not know it. Though if his traveling is going to start trending this way, he’s not going to start complaining about it.

   
At this point, falling back to sleep pretty much is a losing battle, so he finally admits defeat, dresses and gathers a spare blanket from the closet, and moves out into the living room to deposit both the blanket and himself onto the couch. 

“Hey,” Foggy says from the kitchen, “I didn't know you were here. I thought you were out for the night.”

Matt sighs. “I am.”

“Oh,” he says, not comprehending at first, then: “Oh! So, what’s up with the blanket? I mean, just ‘cause you’re traveling doesn’t mean you’re a guest in your own home.”

“No, I know. It’s not that.”

“Beer?”

“Maybe later,” he deadpans.

“Suit yourself,” Foggy says, as he plops himself down next to Matt. He has to fight the impulse to hide the scabs on his hands, but he knows that’ll just bring attention to them, so he does his best to ignore it. Foggy just sips his beer. “So, what is it.”

“Hm?”

“Camping out on the couch when you have a perfectly good bed just a few feet that-a-way,” Foggy says, hooking his thumb toward Matt’s bedroom.

He shifts in his seat and gathers up the blanket in his lap. “I… I don’t know. It’s probably silly, but I don’t like fighting myself over my own stuff, so I just tend to avoid it whenever I can.” He shrugs.

“Oh,” Foggy says. “Is it too weird?”

Matt makes a confused face at him, until he remembers that yeah, of course his condition must seem weird from the outside. 

“I had sisters growing up,” Foggy says, “so, no awkward bed-sharing horror stories for me.”

“Not that I would know, I don’t have any siblings, but I don’t think it’s the same thing. I mean, it’s not another person we’re talking about here. It’s just me.”

“But sometimes there could be a bunch of you running around the house. I’m sure your dad must have _loved_ that.”

Matt forces out a long breath. “Hoooooo,” it sounds like he says, but, “no. He… he never knew. I.” He pauses for a long time. “I can’t control when and where I go. Honestly, I’ve never wanted to—and that’s a whole other thing, but—and it’s gotten better… easier, I mean, as I’ve gotten older, but if I could? Yeah, the first thing I’d do is visit my dad.”

“Wow,” Foggy says, sounding a little stunned. “Are you seriously saying that of all the times you’ve traveled to the past, you’ve never once seen your dad? Not a single time? Dude, that just seems needlessly cruel.”

“The worst part is, the place I’ve been back to the most is the car accident. When I… you know.” He gestures vaguely toward his face. “And he was right _there,_ too. I could have, so many times I could have, but I… no. I never have… I haven’t even been back to the day he…” Matt didn’t know he’d end up crying tonight, but, well, there it is. He tries to smile at Foggy and shrugs.

He runs his hands over his face, and then at the scabbing over his knuckles. Wraps the blanket around himself, and leans his head back against the couch cushion.

After a long while something shifts and his body abruptly jerks, and he wonders if he’s about to travel back. He waits for the pain to start, but then he remembers his arrival here was surprisingly pain-free.

Foggy laughs a little, and says, “you should probably just admit defeat and hit the hay already.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Wait. Can you repeat that last part?”

“Which part.”

“That last thing you said. Did you just admit,” and here Foggy gasps with faux-incredulity, “that I was right about something?”

Matt laughs and smacks Foggy on the arm. “Yes, Fog. You are, on occasion, right about some things.”

“I’ll remember you said that, in case you ever try to argue otherwise.”

“Never,” Matt says through a hard yawn.

“All right, I’ll just go and clean up, huh. G’night, Matt. Don’t let the time travel bugs bite.”

*


	12. Chapter 12

*

When Matt finally slides into their usual booth near the back of the diner, he tilts his head up deprecatingly at Foggy, and offers him the world’s most pathetic smile. 

“Foggy,” he mutters by way of apology. And he should be apologizing, because Matt was supposed to have been here nearly an hour ago, though given the circumstances, it’s a minor miracle he managed to get here at all.

It’s not like Matt has any kind of say in these things… you get dropped off in the present when you get dropped off in the present, his own plans and intentions be damned. 

He's probably entirely too blasé about his breaking and entering habit, how easy it is for him to pull off successfully, (though to be fair, breaking into your own place isn't actually a crime. So he's okay there. Indecent exposure on the other hand... well, that would be a little more difficult to defend if it even came to that. If he ever gets caught. He'd also be on the hook for all the theft he's committed.) but he can't worry about whether his actions are lawful or not. Not when his first and only priority is to simply survive. (Though there are lines he won't cross. He won't assault anyone unprovoked, for example, no matter how desperate he is for clothing. Or shelter. His problems are his own, and no one else's. It isn't fair to impose his fucked up biology on some poor unsuspecting innocent.)

There isn't a house phone in their apartment, because who has those anymore (though maybe getting a spare phone to keep inside wouldn't be such a terrible idea) hence, Matt's incredibly late arrival to their prearranged lunch date, with no way of giving Foggy the courtesy of a heads-up about his tardiness beforehand.

The grimy, vinyl covered table's not the most comfortable place to rest his head, but he's so worn out, he can't help but to succumb to the inevitable.  
He feels like someone's come by and cut all his strings. He can’t move a single muscle, no matter how much he wants to. Turns out he really doesn't want to.

“Hey,”Foggy says. “Everything okay over there?” Then he starts poking Matt's forearm with the blunt end of his coffee spoon.

Matt bats him away like he's some kind of annoying insect, and Foggy squeaks at him he pulls his hand away. And it's that moment when their server decides to magically appear next to their table. 

He sighs, and puts in his order. Just coffee. Black's fine, no cream or sugar; yes he's sure. The waitress huffs disapprovingly; she doesn't exactly seem all too impressed with the disheveled mess of a guy flopped over on the table in front of her. Whatever. He doesn't care.

She disappears, and eventually he mutters out an “I don’t want to talk about it,” to an increasingly unamused Foggy. 

“'Just going to the library' my ass,” Foggy says, repeating Matt's very own words back to him from the last time they spoke. When they were hammering down plans for today, and potentially for the rest of the week. “You're fucking hungover, aren't you.”

He groans, and begrudgingly hauls himself upright so he can rub at his face.

“No,” he says quietly, and folds his hands in front of him. “I really did spend most of the night at the library last night. I didn't lie to you about that.” He lowers his voice and pulls in closer, like they're a pair of conspirators, and adds, “but I also spent the last day and a half or so, you know. Elsewhere.” He shrugs.

“Oh,” Foggy says. He sounds small and far away, even though he's sitting directly across from him in a cramped and dingy diner booth.

When his coffee finally arrives, he somehow remembers to offer the waitress a polite “thank you,” and he has to internally kick himself, because remembering basic courtesy isn't in any way some kind great accomplishment. (Not that he's excusing his behavior, he knows better that this, he does, but he's had a rough… day. Couple of days. Whatever. Right now, social decorum can kiss his ass.) 

Anyway. He sips at his coffee even though it's still too hot for human consumption. It burns his tongue, and leaves a sharp, bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

He sets the mug down on the table, and cradles it tightly. The cheap ceramic mug is still too hot in his hands, but he holds onto it just the same.

“Matt.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says again. He barely wants to think about it, so he takes another sip of coffee, hoping to avoid just that. 

It doesn’t really work. Of course it doesn’t.

He’s not sure why this time's upsets him as much as it does. He’s been to the car crash countless times by this point in his life, too many times to count actually, so he doesn't know why he's this upset about it. He's never felt like this afterward, not in all the years he's had to endure it.

Well, no. He has to shake his head, because that's not true. It's horrible, pretty much every time. This time though, this time Foggy’s words played inside his head like a damn broken record. Not that he blames him, he doesn’t, this wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it was all he could hear as he stood up on that rooftop half naked, shivering and alone. How sad Foggy's voice had been when he’d said how unfair it all is. No. What he actually said was how ‘needlessly cruel’ it all is Needlessly cruel. That God, or fate, or whatever it was would continue to send him back to that same moment in time, and send him again and again and again. 

He didn't realize that's where he had ended up, not at first. Not until he found himself raiding some poor soul’s clothesline for something to wear. Survival 101, and all that.

He'd been wrapping a thin and awkwardly short bathrobe around himself when he heard that unmistakable sound. That ugly sound of tires screeching and the crunch of impact. He knew those sounds intimately, he knew them more than anything else on the face of the Earth. Of course he did, he's heard them so often, he sometimes hears them in his dreams. 

But this time, this time, the loudest thing he heard wasn't the sound of impact, or of his own child-self's screaming, No this time the only thing he could hear was the panicked voice of the old man himself. 

He kept calling (shouting, screaming) Matt’s name over and over and over again, and more than anything else in the world, Matt wanted to call back to him. To yell down into the street below and shout, “hey! Look here! Look up here. I’m here. I’m right here.” But of course, those words wouldn’t come, and his feet wouldn’t move, because ultimately, it doesn't matter what Matt wants. Because he doesn’t control his own life, because he’s never had a say in it. 

He startles when a warm hand rests atop his own, and he ends up cursing under his breath. Shaking his head, he pulls his hands away from the cooling coffee mug and wipes at his wet, hot face. 

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’d been gone for almost two days, and I didn’t have anywhere to go, or to sleep, and I--”

Foggy’s hand stays on Matt’s, in fact he squeezes it like it’s the next best thing to a hug. “Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around it,” he says softly. 

“Yeah,” Matt says.

“I mean, you really do look like you haven't slept in days.”

“Thanks, Fog.”

After a long beat he says,“any time. I mean, why sugar-coat it, right?” He appreciates the way Foggy laughs as he says it. The way he sticks with the joke even though he's embarrassed that he'd walked right into it, face-first.

He's tempted to set his head back down on the table. He feels his body listing to one side, anyway, so he says, “Do you mind if we... you know,” and he hooks his thumb toward the door.

Foggy dramatically slaps himself on the forehead. Then says,“Buddy, I don't know about you, but some of us? Would love to get the hell out of here some time today. I am not kidding. I'm gonna start calling you the Pokey Little Puppy if you don't hurry it up.”

Matt can't help but to let out a laugh at that, because it's not at all the response he expected. Though he probably should have expected something a little like it.

Foggy stands up, fishes out his wallet to pay the bill, and shrugs into his jacket.

“Chop chop! Waiting on you now.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles affably, and knocks back the rest of his ice-cold coffee.

*

On the walk back to their place, Matt nearly stops short in the middle of the sidewalk. 

“I have to go back,” he says all at once.

“Go back,” Foggy says, baffled. “To... wherever you'd been the past two days? I didn't think that was something you could--”

“No, no. It's not. I just mean I have to go and get my stuff. From the library.”

“Oh. Right. Okay, so how 'bout this: we get you home, and I'll go instead.”

He sighs, because he doesn't really have the energy to argue.“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” 

Foggy elbows him in the ribs. “If only you could be in more than one place at at a time, huh?”

“Ha. Yeah,” he says. “If only.” 

*

“Well, you sure lucked out.”

“How's that,” Matt says. He'd planned on catching up on sleep while Foggy was out collecting his stuff, but. That'd been a bust.

“So turns out some kind soul found your stuff for you before I'd even got there. Bagged it all up, too. Set and ready to go.” He lifts up a large paper bag, which crinkles as he sets it down on the coffee table. “Lost and Found. Even had all your books.”

“Wow,” he says. As he sorts through the bag, he tilts his head up to offer Foggy a quick 'thank you,' then gets up from the couch.

“You think it was you?” Foggy asks, following closely behind.

“I don't know,” he says, shrugging a little. “Maybe. Could've been the librarian though,” he says. “I keep wondering how it is I don't have a reputation.” He pauses in his bedroom door. “I don't, right?”

“Not that I know of. But, maybe you might want to avoid going down there for the time being.”

“Oh my god, please tell me no one said anything to you.”

“You mean, besides the old homeless-looking dude who tried to sweet talk me out of your ratty sweater and cheap-ass sneakers?” Matt laughs at that. “Nah. But you know. You don't exactly blend in.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Fuck.” He sits down on the bed to run his hands over this face. He'd been too tired to think about the potential ramifications of leaving his stuff behind in such a public space, but these things have a way of catching up to you, don't they.

“Thank you, Foggy,” he finally says. “You know, for doing all that for me. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course. Any time, bud,” he says, rapping on Matt's bedroom door before gently shutting it behind him.

*

He's not one hundred percent sure, but he thinks he might have been in this church before. During that crazy manic spell in undergrad.

The church had been cold then, too, he remembers. 

He sits up, brings his knees toward his chest so that his toes don't freeze on the frigid stone-slab floor, and rubs his arms to encourages circulation. 

He's pretty sure it's snowing outside--he can smell it, can feel the sharp ice crystals on his tongue and in his lungs--and he can't help but scowl at that, because it means quietly sneaking out of the building isn't an option, not unless he wants to freeze to death, that is.

His teeth chatter, and he knows he should get up, get moving, get that blood flowing, find something warm to cover himself in. He's not sure he'll be able to...

A figure—a person, a man—floats toward him down the center of the main aisle. His footfalls are careful, deliberate, and there's something oddly reassuring about the unflustered way in which he approaches the strange, naked man sitting alone in the pews.

Without saying a word, the man stops next to him, and just stands there for a long, long moment.

He's holding a heavy cardboard box, and has to shift his arms to better carry the weight of it.

Matt turns his head up towards him. “Father?” he guesses.

“Lost and Found,” the man says by way of an answer, and sets the cardboard box down next to Matt. He moves to sit in the pew directly in front of Matt, settling in at his ten o'clock.

“I'm almost afraid to ask,” the man—the priest?--says as Matt rifles through the box for something to wear. He eventually comes up with something twisted up and balled in on itself. At first he can't identify it, not until he unrolls the thing. Turns out he's found an old and tattered broomstick skirt. Next he pulls up a thin t-shirt, and after that he finds a pair of cheap plastic flip-flops. He'd be perfectly dressed for a leisurely summer stroll along the beach. 

He shrugs and dresses, because beggars can't be choosers. 

“Thank you,” he finally manages. But not just for the clothes. For not commenting on the obvious: how he'd ended up on a cold pew in the middle of a snow storm, as naked as a day he was born.

Matt tries not to look surprised when the man turns around and casually asks him if he'd like some coffee, as if that's a thing they do, as it this was a perfectly normal day.

But Matt is cold, and maybe a little hungry, and he knows he's not going to be going anywhere for a while. And besides, this seems to be the perfect opportunity to get a second opinion on some of the weirder problems his condition presents.

Then the man—the priest, Matt now knows—reminds him that even coffee is included in the seal of confession, and Matt can only smile at that, because it's pretty clear this isn't... this won't be the first time they have this conversation.

“Yeah,” he says, and stands, and walks behind the man—the priest—because if he isn't going to comment on Matt's wardrobe, then neither is he.

*


	13. Chapter 13

*

Foggy hovers over him, rattling a pill bottle in his ear like the world's most annoying percussion player. 

Irritation must show on his face, because Foggy says, “don't give me that, I got these especially for you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” he says, and goes back to his reading. 

“C'mon. Put that aside for a sec.”

“No. I'm--”

“--A stubborn pain in the ass?”

He tries not to bark out a laugh. “I don't deny that, but. I'm busy.”

“Just listen for a sec. Please? That's all I'm asking.”

“Yeah, fine.” He very pointedly removes his hands from his Braille display, and neatly folds them in front of himself. 

When he tilts up his head to give Foggy a bland, inoffensive smile, Foggy says, “you're such an asshole,” and Matt instantly regrets giving him his time.

“Or you can insult me. That's fine too.”

Foggy shakes the bottle at him again, and Matt gives a defeated sigh before shifting his focus, trying to work out what it is he's being assaulted with. 

He shakes his head. Nothing. When he opens his mouth to ask, Foggy beats him to the punch, but in the most obnoxious way possible. “Ding ding ding! We have a winner! I have, in my hands here, your new bottle of... Melatonin!” He sounds like a day-time game show host. And Matt's the lucky winner. Fantastic.

He wrinkles his nose. “Isn't that for insomnia.” He keeps his tone flat, hoping to deter Foggy. Maybe a little.

“Exactly right,” Foggy says, infuriatingly undeterred. “Okay,” he says, and plops himself down in a chair. Matt's shoulders droop. “I've been doing some reading up on... you know, time-related disorders, when I came across this doctor--”

“No.”

“What, no. You haven't even heard what I have to--”

“And I don't need to, because I've already told you. No doctors, so you might as well stop while you're ahead.”

“See, and I knew you'd try that, so I went ahead and got this melatonin for you instead.”

“I don't follow.”

“Okay. So, this doctor--”

“Foggy.” He doesn't growl, but it's a near thing.

“ _This doctor,_ ” he very pointedly repeats, “specializes in time travel disorders, right? Super interesting stuff, actually. Probably wouldn't hurt for you to look into it.” Matt presses his lips together. “So this guy's whole thing's is on circadian rhythms, and how--”

Matt absently worries at the edge of the table. He stops once he's aware he's doing it, and hastily folds his hands to set them in his lap. “Mine's kinda fucked up,” he finishes quietly.

“Yeah,” Foggy says, “kind of an understatement.” 

Now he's picking at his jeans, so he moves his hands up to his face, and runs his fingers through his hair. “”Yeah, but. That isn't what I meant. I have a... It's not...” He stops, tries again.“It's a blind thing.”

“Yeah,” Foggy says, distracted. Matt breathes out and drags his hands over his stubble, because Foggy's just wasting his time with all this. “It's a...” and now there's the shuffling of papers, which, yeah, okay. That makes more sense. He's double checking his notes for the right wording. “A sleep disorder, right?” More papers shuffling, then: “yeah, okay. Here we go. It's... Non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder. Wow, is that a mouthful.” Foggy laughs a little, then continues: “okay, this is great, now we're both on the same page.”

He laughs again, before continuing. Self-conscious, maybe. A deep inhale, then he's scratching himself. His arm, maybe. No, his wrist. An itchy spot where sweat's been collecting under his leather watch band. “So, I've been reading about these clinical trials, right? They used melatonin to treat people without light perception--”

“Okay, stop,” because Foggy's trying to help, but he's barking up the wrong tree with this whole thing. Matt doesn't time travel because he's blind, for fuck's sake. He time travels because he fucking time travels. “This kind of thing is for insomnia, which I don't have, by the way.”

“But the Non-24 thing.”

“Yeah,” he says, and all at once he's exhausted. “My circadian rhythm is fucked up, Foggy, you're right about that, but it's not a... it's a mild inconvenience at best. Of all the things I have to deal with, insomnia is not one of them. So can we drop it already?”

“Okay, but you don't think that maybe they're related? Your circadian rhythm is off. You time travel. It's not that big of a stretch.”

“Foggy, I appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do, but you sound like you know more about my disorder than I do.”

“So I've read some medical journals here and there. Sue me.”

Matt sighs. “Is 'I should have been a chronobiologist' going to be the new 'I should have been a butcher'?”

“...that's a thing?”

“So you don't know more than I do. Got it.”

“Okay. That's totally fair. But, Matt. This doctor guy,” and it's all Matt can do to keep from pulling out his hair. “He'd probably be really into the whole Non-24 aspect of things, too.”

“I have exactly zero interest in turning myself into someone else's lab rat, thank you very much.”

“Okay, so maybe you don't have insomnia. But you've always been a bit of a night owl, and maybe, just maybe--”

“Foggy. Why aren't you hearing me on this? I'm not going to see any doctors, and I won't self medicate, either. Got it?” Foggy huffs out disapprovingly, opens his mouth to protest, so Matt says, “I know you're trying to help, but please. Stop trying to help.” And here he lowers his voice, because he hadn't meant to get so worked up over this whole thing. “Unless you wanna help me study. That I'm more than okay with.” He smiles, and laughs a little, hoping it'll defuse some of the tension hanging over them.

“Okay, but just so you know,” and he sounds fond, and maybe a little exasperated, “you don't have to suffer through this alone.” Foggy's arm makes an aborted motion over the table, like he wanted to reach out and take Matt's hand, but thought better of it at the last second. Matt wishes he'd gone through with it.

“I know that.” Then with a crooked half-smile adds, “that's what I have you for.”

“Damn straight you do. Wait, so does that mean...”

“Sure” he says, still keeping that same half-grin, “how else am I going to get through law school without the world's best study partner. ”

Foggy pauses for a long beat, then says, “that was not as smooth as you think it was, Murdock. Just to let you know. Also? Feel free to butter me up any time you want. Okay. So. What'da we studying here.”

*

The next morning he's standing naked in his own bathroom, not a single bit surprised to find an unfamiliar container innocuously sitting in the medicine cabinet next to his razor and curled up tube of toothpaste. Lifting the thing up next to his ear, he shakes it until he's sure it's the same stuff Foggy tried selling him on the night before. 

That man does not give up.

He isn't petty. He's not, and tells himself this when he hides the damn thing somewhere behind Foggy's bottle of artificially fruit-flavored candy (somehow marketed to adults like Foggy as “nutritional supplements.”) 

By the time he's done showering and shaving, he's forgotten all about the unwanted, unneeded over-the-counter medication.

*

An undetermined amount of time later:

His foot slips on the still-wet tile floor, and he doesn't whack his head against anything on the way down, but it's a close thing. 

He's in a bathroom—a shower, more specifically—and when he reaches out to stop his fall, he ends up grabbing hold of the molding vinyl curtain lining the inside of the bathtub, and the whole thing ends up coming down with him, metal shower rod and all. 

“Whoops,” he lets out, bare-assed on the slippery tub floor. He tries to extricate himself from underneath the heap of wet shower curtain, and as he stands says, “sorry,” because whoever lives here is now on the hook for putting this all back together, and he can't imagine they'll be very happy about that.

He finds a bathrobe made of damp terry cloth hanging on the door, and almost loses his footing again. He doesn't go down again, thank goodness, but the bathrobe comes off the door all the same, taking the cheap plastic hook with it. 

He breathes out through his nose, because this is just a ridiculous comedy of errors here. 

Once he's wrapped himself with the robe, several things hit his senses at once: a scant few molecules of some vaguely familiar fragrance hanging in the air; sweat, aftershave, yeah, toothpaste; something made of mostly sugar and gelatin; the outline of a man in the doorway wielding an aluminum baseball bat; mold in the grout, piss on the floor. “Foggy.”

Foggy.

It's Foggy's bathroom. It's Foggy outlined in the door frame... it's...

It's.

“Fucking--”

“--Foggy.”

“Fucking what the fuck.”

He reaches out. Finds the damp curtain, finds terry cloth, finds...

“Do you know,” Foggy starts, carefully, oh so carefully, “where I've been the past several hours?”

Matt just shakes his head. Of course he doesn't know. How could he. He's... He just. He's standing in the middle of someone else's bathroom, cold and naked and. And.

“I can't. Fucking. Get away from you! Can I? It's like we're fucking attached at the fucking hip! And, you know what, Matt. Excuse my fucking French here, but I just can't do this anymore, I just can't. Not after tonight. Not after...” He's trying not to cry. He's... And Matt... 

A shuttering breath, and: “Foggy.” And maybe he did hit his head? He's not sure, he's...

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out, Matt.”

“Foggy.”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out. I don't want you. I don't want you in my life.” Foggy makes a choked off sound. He doesn't mean that, he doesn't... 

Foggy evaporates—he's gone, he's--and while he's... away, Matt sits on the toilet seat and waits. He just waits.

Okay. So. Going over the last few moments: he knows that dropping into a situation out of context isn't the best thing ever, but. What is... Matt shows up in Foggy's bathroom unexpectedly, which, fine. These things happen. Foggy knows it does. He knows Matt's life is fucked up and out of context.

Unless. Unless this is before? Is this before that? No. It can't be. Matt's never been in this room before. This apartment. This _bathroom_. This is after, it has to be, unless. Unless.

The door creaks opens, and Foggy unceremoniously tosses a pile of clothes at him.

He catches them easily enough, then finds himself pawing at them. Feels the texture of the fabric, their weight. He recognizes these pieces: and well, he should, since they belong to him. A t-shirt. A pair of sweatpants. They smell stale; it's been a few years since they've seen the inside of a washing machine. 

“Thank you. Foggy, thanks.”

“Yeah. You can thank me by getting the hell out of here. Go home, Matt.”

As he pulls the shirt over his head, he says, “love to, but,” and spreads out his hands to indicate _what can you do._

“You're not cute,” Foggy says. He shakes his head and mumbles something that sounds something like, “don't know why I ever...”

Matt stands up to ask, “have any shoes?” and waves his right foot at Foggy to emphasize his current state of shoelessness.

He huffs unhappily. “I might have an old pair of sneakers. Hold a sec.”

He nods and shoves his hands deep in his pockets. Picks at the lint he finds there, and waits for Foggy to come back. Again. He knows Foggy always comes back.

“Shoes are at your one o'clock.” Foggy bends down and places them just inside the threshold. Then turns around and leaves Matt standing in bathroom alone. He shivers, even though the air is still warm and humid. Foggy couldn't have finished his shower more than a few minutes before Matt arrived here. No wonder he feels intruded upon.

He slips on the old, worn pair of sneakers, and follows Foggy out into the living room. He's never been here before.

“Can I at least know what I did?” They stand awkwardly in front of one another, and Matt sways on his toes. “Because you don't usually...” _Blame me for something I haven't done yet._ “You're usually happier to see me.”

“Do you know how to get home? You know where you live?” Yeah, Foggy really does want him out of his hair.

“Yeah,” he says, swallowing. “But I don't... the last time I was there... I don't think I can... I don't want to be there. Not yet.”

“Yeah, well. Join the damn club. I stayed all night, Matt. The whole night. I'm tired, and you.” Foggy's crying. Christ. This is... Matt feels his face crumble. If this goes on for much longer, he's going to cry, too.

“And I was on the roof the whole time?”

“You were up on the roof the whole night, yes.”

“Okay,” he says, because at least they're on the same page now.

“So please. Get the hell out of my living room so I can get some damn sleep already.”

Foggy leaves Matt standing there alone in the living room, and just behind that shut bedroom door, Foggy's trying to have his freak-out with making an ounce of noise. Without Matt hearing.

“I'm sorry,” he mutters, and closes the door behind him as soundlessly as possible.

*


	14. Chapter 14

*

He ends up back home anyway.

Home, well. ‘Home.’ 

‘Casa de Murdock’ at any rate. That’s what Foggy had called it that time he’d dropped him off here. That time when they...

Well. That was then.

With a sigh he says to himself, “I’m between homes right now,” and slides down the building’s grimy facade to plant his bottom on the cool, damp sidewalk.

The night he’d stayed on the roof, Foggy had sought him out just as morning broke. His friend hadn’t said a word to him when he'd faced him then, not a single one.  


And before kicking him out of his home earlier this morning, he had said, “I don’t want you. I don’t want you in my life.” 

So he sits alone outside, cradling his head against his knees. He’s just so damn tired. Probably could fall right to sleep out here, if he allowed it.

“Come on, Matty,” he imagines his dad saying. “Get back up. Get up, son,” and he can’t keep the hot tears from falling down his face, because he’s not sure he can.

“Too much of a coward,” he says out loud, says to his dad, because he’d rather sleep out here on the sidewalk like a homeless man than go upstairs and face the truth of what's happened there.

Matt nearly died. He nearly died.

Enough time passes that he thinks maybe he really did fall asleep. It’s late afternoon, and next to him, someone he doesn't know bends down to lean in close. He can't say he appreciates his space being invaded like this, so he turns his head towards them, opens his mouth to ask them what the hell they want, or need, but he doesn't because he’s interrupted by the clink of coins as they fall into a paper cup somewhere near his person.

He scowls as the stranger disappears down the street and around the corner, and he rubs his face a little too vigorously, because he knows he’s being ridiculous.

If he doesn't sense his presence down here, Matt-upstairs will remember full well just how chicken-shit he'd been. 

You can't hide from yourself, no matter who you are or what you've done (or will do, as the case may be.)

He thuds his head against the wall behind him. Taps his fingers against his thigh and picks at the edge of his t-shirt. He does not want to be here.

Every so often, some passerby will plunk down handfuls of change at him. Sometimes the coins make it into the empty coffee cup, but mostly they just clatter onto the sidewalk. 

Most people, though, most people just ignore him.

He’d make himself invisible if he could. Better yet, he’d make himself disappear entirely. Poof! Just like that. 

Just like that. 

Eventually another woman stops in front of him, and she just kind of hovers over him for what feels like a long, long time. He turns away from her, and shrinks in on himself as best he can, makes himself small and as uninteresting as possible. 

“You okay?” she asks. It’s gentle. Gentler than any stranger has the right to be.

He shakes his head no, but what he really means is, _I really have no interest in engaging with you. Plop down your quarters or dimes or whatever amount will assuage your guilt, or your pity, and move on with your life._

Except she doesn’t seem to take the hint. Just stands there awkwardly on the sidewalk, rocking on her heels, and tucking her hair behind an ear. Matt breathes out through his nose.

“Look,” he starts, but she just bowls over him.

“Were you really in a car accident?”

“I’m sorry?” he say incredulously, because whatever he thought she was going to say to him, it wasn't that.

“I'm sorry, I just didn’t expect to see you out here, that’s all. Foggy said you were hurt, so I thought…” She huffs out a bitter laugh instead of finishing her sentence. Maybe she didn't actually know what she'd find here.

“Just needed some fresh air,” he deadpans. Then: “Foggy?” _You know him?_ “You talked to him? What did… what did he say?”

“He sounded pissed. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but he said you were hit by a car and--”

“Yeah,” he says. Well, maybe not recently. But he has been. In fact, it’s been a defining moment of his life. Just go and ask any one of the many versions of himself stuck back there, buzzing around the scene like so many houseflies.

“Okay,” she says. Laughs a little to herself, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean--”

“No, it's okay.”

“We should sue though, right? You know what kind of car it was?”

He scrunches up his face, searches his memory. “A truck, I think? But I don’t… I couldn’t tell you make or model, no.”

“Right,” she says through a soft huff. “Sorry, I--”

He shakes his head at her. _Please don't._ Because there isn't anything to be sorry _for._

“Okay, well,” he starts. He's had about as much awkwardness as he can take. He stands up and brushes himself off, and tries not to wince as his legs complain about sitting on the hard sidewalk too long. “I should probably--” 

“Yeah,” she says. Then: “oh! Before I forget!” She produces something from behind her back, and whatever it is, he has a tough time parsing it. It just doesn't seem to make any _sense._

He knows he’s making some kind of confused face, because she laughs good-naturedly at him and says, “yeah, it’s… here,” and then she’s taking his hand and pressing something into it. It's thin and long, and he likes the texture of it, likes the way the crinkled ridges feel against his thumb and forefinger. He scratches it with his thumbnail, because it’s a nice, long length of ribbon. Attached to something light and floaty.

“Oh,” he says, because it’s a helium balloon. He gives it a quick pull, and she laughs. “Thanks,” he says, smiling. 

If he were to let go right now, it would float away forever. 

“Yeah,” she says again. “It... has a monkey on it.” She laughs again, self-conscious and he smiles at her again, because she seems to do that a lot. 

He wants to ask for her name, but he cannot think of a single way to do so without it being completely awkward. He’s reminded of when he met Claire that first time; he’d been injured, and desperately trying not to come across as brain-damaged. 

“Well, I uh, I should probably take this inside,” he says, because the balloon is obviously meant for Matt-upstairs. 

He regrets immediately stealing this moment from her. From himself in a few years when he'll be able to appreciate it better. When he’ll actually need it.

“Okay,” she says. “Well, I hope you feel better.” Her body temperature spikes in a way he knows only too well, and she leans in to peck him on the cheek. It’s very sweet, chaste even, but he knows it's not as innocent as she’s letting on. 

It would be so easy. He could lay down that charm, move in close. But he doesn’t. He can’t. Not like this. He takes a small step back, and tucks his chin toward his chest; he’s not who she thinks he is. Not yet anyway. “I’ll be fine,” he finally says. “Thanks.”  


He tugs at the balloon again as a goodbye, and heads inside.

*

When he gets upstairs, he lets himself into the apartment to find stale air, and Matt standing in front of the fridge. 

“So that was Karen,” Present Matt says. He approaches, stiff and awkward, and reaches out so he can swap out the balloon for a cold beer. Matt hovers by the couch with the bottle cradled in both of his hands as Present Matt gingerly sets himself down amongst some throw pillows and a heavy blanket.

“Are we… are we dating?” Because that was a pretty… cozy scene out there just now.  


Present Matt groans as he moves and shifts his weight. “We could be. But no. Not at the moment, at least.” 

He goes and returns the beer to fridge, wondering why Matt had even bothered bringing it over in the first place. Surely he remembers not particularly wanting it. “Look,” he says after he's shut the refrigerator door. “I’m not really interested in talking to myself about nothing while pretending the massive gorilla doesn’t exist.”

“Monkey,” Other Matt says. “Allegedly.”

“What?”

“Karen. She means well.”

He sighs. “Yeah, I’m sure. Just. Look. Am I going to be stuck here long?” 

“I don’t actually remember.”

“That’s really helpful. Thanks.”

“Any time,” the asshole says. Then he adds, “I’m just gonna sleep out here,” because he doesn't like to fight over the same space.

Can you still be considered a manipulative asshole if you're using your own psychology against yourself?

“Fine,” he mutters, and shuts the bedroom door behind him.

*

Tucked snugly in his own bed, he doesn’t travel, and he doesn’t sleep. 

When he’d finally had enough fighting it, he pads out into the living room, and just stands there. He’s not sure what to do from here.

“Now it’s just willful ignorance,” Present Matt mutters from the couch. He’s sound asleep, though, completely unaware his younger self’s even out here. Not on a conscious level, anyway.

He finds a pair of sneakers by the door, and slips them on. Collects his glasses and cane. Doesn’t unfold it.

He doesn’t leave through the front door. Instead, he climbs up the stairs and heads for the roof.

It’s a pattern, he realizes as he stands right at the edge of the rooftop. Whenever he’s here, ultimately, he’ll end up on the roof.

Well, he doesn’t really have anywhere to go, and he doesn’t particularly want to stay here, so he jumps down from the ledge, squares his shoulders, and runs.

Until now, he’d lived his life so, so carefully. He’d been so good. Gone to school, presented himself as a fine, upstanding young man, and even tricked himself into believing that was who he truly was. But right now, as he clears another building, rolls into another landing, he knows he’d been fooling himself. “Willful ignorance.”

Maybe he doesn’t yet understand why he’ll pursue vigilante justice when he’ll go on to earn himself a perfectly valid law degree, but this. This he understands. He understands the freedom of movement, the wind in his hair, the sense that he can do anything, make his body move and do what he wants, go where he wants.  


He hadn’t felt this free since he was a kid. He runs along another ledge, clears an a/c unit, dodges a clothesline. This is what he was built to do. This is what he was trained for.

He runs and runs, and in a moment of carelessness, his foot catches, and then he’s falling off the edge of the building.

“Oh thank god,” he mutters as he falls and falls. The ground rushes up toward him, but it doesn’t break his fall.

*

The next morning, he’s standing in front of his medicine cabinet, readying himself for the day. He finds the over the counter insomnia medicine back on his own shelf, next to his toothbrush and razor. He huffs out a small laugh. But he doesn’t move it, or otherwise touch it, instead he just shuts the cabinet door and gets on with his day.

*


	15. Chapter 15

*

Some time later, he stands framed in Foggy’s doorway, knocks to announce his presence, and says, “we’re good, right?”

Foggy turns his head up toward Matt. “Huh?”

“Never mind. Just.” _You were so angry, and I…_ He shakes his head. Staying in the present is a skill and a mindset he’ll probably never truly master.

“Matt.” Foggy pauses. Then: “did something happen?”

Matt breathes out. “Let me just give you a piece of advice: if you ever find a crystal ball or something like it, and it offers to read you your future? Throw it away. Don’t even give it a second thought. Knowing too much about your own future… it’s not great, Foggy. It really isn’t.”

“That sounds pretty dire,” he says with a small laugh. He might be saying ‘that all sounds dire,’ but he isn’t taking any of this very seriously. Matt kind of loves him for it. “But let me offer you a bit of free advice of my own: fortune telling is a scam, and anyone who claims otherwise is selling you something.”

“You’re right,” Matt says. Now he’s trying not to laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” This is okay. They’re going to be okay.

He knocks on the doorjamb, a quick one-two to indicate ‘I’m heading out to the gym,’ and Foggy nods in acknowledgment.

“Oops,” he says under his breath. “I mean, I’ll catch ya later.”

And Matt can’t help but to laugh as he nods in return.

*

The pill bottle sits in the back of his medicine cabinet, and in the very back of his mind.

*

During his last year of law school, he barely travels at all. There’s a couple of bullshit trips here and there, but it isn’t anything he can’t handle. 

“Maybe you should consider meds for finals, though,” Foggy says when Matt mentions this to him.

Matt groans. “It’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure, because--”

“I’m not worried about it. And neither should you.”

“All right,” Foggy finally says with a sigh. “But I will remember you said that.”

*

To be honest, he’d been expecting his stomach to drop out the first time he (technically) steps into his new place, but nothing like that happens. He doesn’t feel much of anything at all. The room and these wall are blank still, like a slate. They don’t yet hold any of the memories that keep circling around and around in his brain. 

Blandly he says, “I didn’t know about the billboard,” when Foggy complains about it.

For the first time in his admittedly topsy-turvy life, Matt shares his bed with another version of himself. Matt’s traveling from two weeks from now, and apparently he’s still feeling subdued and a little bit empty.

The walls might not remember, but Matt does, and so neither one speaks, too afraid of buckling under the weight of it all.

*

On graduation day, Foggy leads Matt up and across the stage when Matt’s name is called, and the crowd of students and spectators alike seem utterly charmed by it. 

Matt hadn’t even put up an argument about it, which apparently shocked the hell out Foggy. He’d been expecting a fight, and Matt’d let him down. 

This way seemed special, though. Important in ways he doesn’t really know how to articulate, and Foggy seems to melt a little bit when Matt tells him so.

Afterwards, Matt runs his fingers over his diploma, finds the words _Summa Cum Laude,_ and stands there with his shoulders square and his head up, because they’re going to conquer the world, he and Foggy. It’s going to be… They’re. They’re going to be great.

“Hey! Look who it is,” Foggy says later on that night. After most everyone’s gone somewhere else to celebrate their own personal success.

“I don’t see anything,” Matt says through a small laugh, and someone he doesn’t know audibly gasps. Foggy smacks him on the arm for it, and he can’t help but to grin at him.

Foggy’s spotted Matt out there in one of the folding chairs, and he can’t help but to remember how he had sat there all night in that cold, uncomfortable metal chair until morning. Stayed there until the sprinklers came on, until the sun came up, until he traveled back to where he was supposed to be.

“C’mon,” Foggy says. “Let’s go say hi.”

“That was a weird time,” Matt mutters to himself. He shakes his head when Foggy asks him to repeat himself. “Never mind,” he mutters. Then: “no, you go on ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Oh, if you’re sure,” he says, sounding disappointed.

Matt claps him on the shoulder, and makes his way home.

*

When it finally comes time to take the bar, Matt and Foggy rent a hotel room so they don’t have to waste any of their valuable cram-time on commuting.

Matt hasn’t traveled in months.

“I’m gonna fuck it up, I just know it.”

“Do you actually know, or are you just stressing yourself out for no reason.”

“What do you mean, do I know.”

“I mean, how do you know anything weird, Matt.”

“Oh. Yeah, that. No. I… I have no idea how any of this goes.”

“Oh, well good. Now you can be like the rest of us non-temporally challenged for a change.”

“Temporally challenged,” he says. Then: “yeah, okay. That’s fair, I suppose.”

Later that night when he readies for bed, he finds the bottle of melatonin in the bathroom, even though he hadn’t been the one to pack it. “Subtle,” he mutters. “I don’t know if this was such a good idea.” 

He picks up the bottle and shakes it. Since he’s not able to read the label for himself, and he doesn’t exactly want to ask Foggy, he has no idea what the appropriate dosage should be. Not that it matters, because he won’t be taking any. After all, he doesn’t believe in self-medication.

He leaves the pill bottle where it is, even as a small voice somewhere deep in his subconscious warns him that maybe it would best if he just threw them all away. 

*

The next night, he adds one pill to his bedtime routine, and he ends up sleeping better than he has in a long, long time.

*

“Game day tomorrow, you ready?”

“We got this,” Matt says as he head to take his shower.

“Yeah we do,” Foggy says, and when he’s not looking, Matt swallows one, then (fuck it) two pills before brushing his teeth and crawling into bed.

*

The next morning the entire city of New York is abuzz with nervous energy as test-time looms overhead. Or maybe it’s just Matt.

The two of them sit in a coffee shop sipping overpriced lattes as they kill time before the big event, and Matt’s regretting the intake of so much caffeine. His fingers won’t stop twitching, and he’s starting to develop a headache.

“You okay over there?”

“Just nerves,” he mutters. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m just saying. Don’t stress yourself out, cuz, you know. Stress is big trigger for you.”

_“I know that,”_ he says through clenched teeth. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” He breathes, and adds, “we both will. You’ll see.”

“Oh yeah,” Foggy says brightly. “Murdock and Nelson!”

“No,” he says, laughing a little. “I’ve already told you. It’s the other way around,” and puts out his fist for Foggy to bump. 

Foggy laughs as he returns the gesture, and he knows everything will work out just fine. It will. It has to.

*

A headache he can handle. It’s when his stomach clenches and he’s sweating enough to dampen his clothes that he begins to worry that something might be wrong.

He makes it to men’s room, and he doesn’t have time to think about how this type of scenario usually plays out. He’s too busy dry heaving into a piss-soaked toilet bowl to worry about anything else.

When his stomach’s finally had enough of oh so productively expelling nothing at all, he collapses on the floor, and waits for the inevitable to come. His muscles cramp up in that familiar way they always do, his headache blooms, and, nothing happens.  
Nothing at all. 

Then he’s writhing and seizing on the floor, all tense muscles and coiled pain.

“Holy shit! Matt! Matt!”

He’s never wanted to travel so fucking much in his entire life.

He tries to say, “call Claire,” but the most he can manage is something like _ka._ "Ka. Kla.”

“It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. I got you. I--”

“Fa--”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me, pal, it’s gonna be okay, okay? It’s gonna… the paramedics are on their way, okay? Matt?”

He tries to nod, but just rolls over and ends up puking all over his friend.

“Oh, well, that’s okay. That’s okay, Matt. Don’t worry about… oh, oh shit.”

Which is the last thing Matt hears before his body finally, finally remembers what it’s supposed to do here.

*


	16. Chapter 16

*

“Fuck.” Just. 

Fuck.

He gags and his eyes water, and he has to bite back that burning taste of acid in the back of his throat because he doesn’t want to… he will not throw up again.

Not if he can get his breathing under control. 

“Fuck,” he says again, and rubs his face. He’s not sure where he is. Inside an old building, that much he can piece together. 

He hears footsteps _tap-tap-tapping_ up a flight of stairs. High heels, he thinks. Not sure if it’s someone he knows, but their steady heartbeat reads _determined,_ and _righteous._ It also reads _‘dear god, I hope I don’t get caught.’_

Matt can relate. He really can. Getting caught out like this--exposed and vulnerable--it’s something he thinks about. Worries about. All the time.

The space he’s in does feel somewhat familiar, if he could just… but he’s not sure... Everything’s too fuzzy and muffled and loud, and he just. It’s too hard to focus. He shakes his head, shakes it out like a big wet dog, but it doesn’t help, not one bit. Doesn’t clear out any of the dusty cobwebs cluttering up his pounding and aching skull.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap tap tap. It’s the only sound he hears. 

The footsteps grow louder, get closer and closer, and he knows he’s busted when he hears the jingle-jangle of keys in the moments before the pins inside the lock tumbler _clink clink_ into place.

The key turns, and then the door’s gently creaking open on ancient and rusting hinges. 

He stumbles, trips over his own feet, but manages to throw himself into the nearest room. Firmly slams shut the door behind him, and breathes out a great sigh of relief when he realizes that the space he’s in smells entirely neutral to him. Like nothing. Like everything. Overwhelmingly, blessedly his own.

The woman on the other side of the door, though, she’s a bouquet of stress and adrenaline. Of fear and defiance. Under her breath she curses, and when she speaks up loud enough to be heard, her voice quavers. “Whoever you are… whoever’s in here, you should know I am not fucking around.” And he knows his focus is shot, but he’s pretty sure on the other side of that door, this woman is holding a gun. In hands that barely shake.

God. This is the same woman he met outside his apartment that one time. The one with the balloon.

K-something. Katherine, maybe. Or Katie.

“Kuh,” he says out loud. “Karen.”

“Matt?! _What_ \--” and all at once her fear and trepidation evaporates. Like it was never there at all. “I thought you were…” She inhales, then under her breath she says, “what the hell.”

He groans and thumps his head against the door. 

“Hey,” she softly says. “You… everything okay? Is it... do you need anything, can I come in?”

“No!” he practically shouts, surging up and blocking the door lest she tries barging in.

“What,” she mutters when she tries to shoulder the door open. “Matt,” she pleads when it’s clear the door won’t budge.

“Sorry,” he says, and while he isn’t exactly ashamed of his own nudity, it’s more than a little awkward being here like this, and how are you supposed to explain away something like this to someone you hardly even know? ‘Hi, I’m Matt, and sometimes I’ll just appear out of thin air unexpectedly and completely naked?’ There is no graceful way out of a conversation like that. 

“Okay, it’s okay, Matt. I’ll just… I’ll be right back. Everything’ll be okay, I promise.” He groans, and she finally, finally moves away from the door, to a deeper part of the office, fishing out a phone from her pocket as she goes.

_“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency,”_ Foggy brightly answers, and Matt remembers this. God, he remembers this. The two of them, laughing. Drinking. And he remembers how that night had ended, too. In some grimy alleyway in the rain, while Matt hastily stripped off his clothes.

“Ha,” he says out loud, because, “you wish.”

Karen materializes right outside the door again and gives it a quick knock.

“Matt?” she says. Pleads. Begs. Tells him that it’s going to be okay, that he doesn’t need to _hide,_ but he does, he really does. “You can wait for Foggy,” she says, “that’s totally fine,” and his face burns hot at the thought of Foggy finding him like this.

“Yeah,” he tries. “Yeah, that’s. That’s okay.”

She and Foggy argue over the phone, over him, over Matt and his well-being, and he _remembers this._

_He’s having some kind of depressive episode_ she had said, is saying. _I’m not just gonna leave him here._

“Okay,” she says after a small while, after she pockets her phone. “Foggy’s on his way.”

“Thank you,” he mutters. “Thanks.”

“Sure I can’t come in?” she asks almost teasingly.

He shakes his head, then belatedly remembers to say, “no. Karen, thank you.”

“Okay,” she says through nervous laughter. “I’ll just… I’ll be at my desk, I guess.”

*

He starts awake, and grimaces, because he hadn’t meant to fall asleep propped up against the door like this. 

“Knock-knock. You decent?” 

_Foggy._

Matt grunts and tries leveraging himself up to standing. Turns out he’s not the only one to have fallen asleep in here, his legs have too.

The door opens, cracks open just a sliver, and Foggy says, “Jesus, you're a mess,” before squeezing himself in and shutting the door behind himself. “I um. I have your clothes. They’re a little damp, though. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Yeah,” he says as he reaches for them. “I remember.”

“Okay, yeah, so. I’ll um. I’ll just…” and he turns away. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Matt mutters as he pulls the cold and still-damp pants up over his hips. There isn’t much in the way of privacy between the two of them, there hasn’t been for a long time now.

“What did you tell her. Karen. Before you came in here.”

“I dunno. What I always tell her whenever I need to make up some weird Matt Murdock shit on the fly. That you have issues, you know?”

“Issues.”

“What, you don’t?”

“I plead the fifth,” he says with a shrug, and Foggy very generously laughs.

“Okay,” he says, then: “hey, I meant to ask.”

“Where am I coming from?”

“Yeah.”

Matt breathes out. “I… I fucked up, Foggy,” he says. “I shouldn’t have… and I knew better, too, but I thought I could…”

“Matt. Matty.”

“Remember when we were supposed to take the bar exam?”

“Oh!” Foggy says. Then: “Yeah, that kinda sucked.”

“Yeah. I. Listen, Foggy. I need to say this before I lose my nerve. You. You need to back off with the medication, okay? And I know you mean well, and I know that normally they’re totally harmless so there was no real way for you to know, but. I'd really rather not go through that again.” He takes a second to breath, and when he continues, it’s barely above a whisper. “I’m not sure I can even have a normal internal clock, my body won’t _allow_ it.”

“Yeah,” Foggy quietly says. “I kinda guessed, so I threw them away. After you had that seizure or whatever it was. Matt,” and Foggy’s voice breaks on Matt’s name, “I am really, really--”

“--Ultimately, I’m the genius who decided to actually take them, so don’t… I’m not--”

“--I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” _For everything._

“can I?” Foggy says, and Matt can’t help but to expel an airy ‘oomph’ as his friend squeezes him so tight he thinks his heart might burst.

And when Foggy finally lets go of him, Matt’s fingers immediately start picking at the edges of his sleeves.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here, huh?” and Foggy opens the door to say, “hey, Karen? I’m just gonna take Matt home, okay?” 

“Oh,” she says, when they both emerge from the office. She sounds surprised, or, no. More like busted. She’d just been caught doing something (looking at something?) but neither of them comment on it. 

So Matt just stands there with a bland, empty smile.

_“What happened to his clothes,”_ she says slowly, wide-mouthed, and barely audible. He thinks she may even be pointing at him.

Foggy’s heartbeat does that thing where he doesn’t know if he should just go ahead and tell the truth, or make up some bullshit.

He settles on bullshit, apparently.

_“Too much to drink,”_ Foggy whispers back in that same open-mouthed manner. Then he mimes throwing up. Which… okay, so that last part isn’t too far from the truth.

Matt tries to school his features, but he must not do a very good job of it because Karen says, “sorry, Matt. We might have been talking about you behind your back. A little.” She says the last part around a huff of nervous laughter.

“Well,” he says, going for good-natured. “As long as it’s all good things, then I can’t say I mind.”

“Ha! Ha ha, yeah, only good things for you, buddy! You bet!” Foggy claps him on the back, and Matt gives a forced smile. Hey, no one ever said they were any good at this. 

With significantly more sobriety, Foggy says to Karen, “go home. I mean it.”

She seems to deflate a little, but says, “okay, Foggy.” She sounds very fond. “You sure you’re gonna be okay, Matt?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” she says, not sounding at all convinced. 

“I have Foggy.”

“That you do,” Foggy says.

*

“You know, it’s probably going to be pretty awkward when I finally do catch with her in the present?”

“Who, Karen?” 

Matt doesn’t really want to go home, but they seem to be headed that way anyway. He nods.

“I don’t know. You seemed to do okay. I mean, I literally had no idea. Explains some things though.”

“Like what.”

“We’re gonna cross here. Just. Things.”

“You don’t want to tell me.”

“Maybe I like having a little bit foreknowledge for once in my life. Makes for a nice change of pace, don’t you think?”

Matt laughs. “Okay, well. I don’t disagree with you about that. Only fair.”

“Damn straight.”

Matt sighs. “Speaking of foreknowledge…”

“Yeah?” Foggy says, stretching the word out. It’s a very cautious way of answering.

“Just how fucked am I, exactly.”

“How do you mean.” 

Breathe in. Exhale. “Today was the bar exam.”

“Not gonna lie: I was super jealous of you that day.”

“Why, ‘cause I got out of it? That’s not good, Foggy, I--”

“C’mon. You know better than that.”

He really doesn’t.

“Besides, that isn’t even what I--” Matt cuts him off with a raised hand. He hears…

“Holy shit,” Foggy mutters. “Your freaky radar’s got something, doesn’t it. Oh, god, is it a mugger, or--”

Foggy’s vitals shift from terrified to annoyed the moment Matt hears a pair of heavy boots land in front of them. “Jesus Christ.” Then: “Oh, look who it is.”

“Hey, Fog.”

“‘ _Hey’_ , he says,” Foggy grumbles, and Matt self-consciously adjusts his grip on his friend’s elbow.“An hour ago you were too busy to be bothered, and now here you are being bothersome.”

“Fog, c’mon,” Matt says, just as Present-Matt spreads his hands and says, “I’m just here to talk.” 

“We’re talking! Look at us, talking up a storm.” 

Except they walk to rest of the way in silence, right up until Present-Matt vaults up to the rooftops. “Meet me upstairs,” he says, and then vanishes.

Foggy unlocks the door to Matt’s apartment with his spare key, lets Matt in, then wordlessly trudges up the stairs to the roof. 

“Okay,” he says out loud, before collapsing on the couch. He tunes out the conversation happening up on the roof, and as he does, he’s hit with a strange, and fleeting sense of deja vu.

Sleep overtakes him, and he finds himself dreaming of butterfly wings, and open-faced books. Sounds and echoes. Mirrors too, or at least some hazy, long-forgotten memory of them. These are patterns, his dream-brain tells him. Nothing but patterns and patterns.

*

“Ever read William Burroughs?”

“Oh, here we go. What are we actually talking about, here. Book bannings? Obscenity laws?”

“No, no. I’ve been thinking a lot about, you know. The cut-up technique. That’s when you take an already finished work--a poem, for example--and cut it up and rearrange the pieces to form something new. Bowie did it. A lot of artists did.”

“Since when have you ever listened to David friggen _Bowie._ ”

“Never mind that, it’s not my point.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, that’s my entire life right there, right? Cut up and rearranged.”

“I reject your premise, counselor.”

“I don’t think I qualify for that title just yet? But I’m just gonna let that slide for the time being. Instead: why do you reject my premise.”

“Because your life isn’t, and I quote, ‘an already finished work.’”

“But how do I know?”

“I guess you don’t. The same as the rest of us, but your life isn’t _over_ , man.”

“No. I know.”

“Good, because I’d hate it if that's how you’re feeling.”

“I mean, things are on the horizon that I am absolutely dreading. And they’re coming. Head on, like a collision. But I also know good things are on the way, too. Things I'm genuinely looking forward to. So, there’s that.”

“Well, that just sounds like regular life. Like anybody else’s.”

“Ha. Yeah, I suppose it does. Thanks, man.”

"You got it. Any time."

*


	17. Chapter 17

*

The first thing Matt does once he’s back to the present is check his device for the time and date (morning after test day, 6:28 a.m.) The second thing he does is call Foggy.

“Yeah,” Foggy answers, voice still thick with sleep.

“Hey, sorry to wake you.”

“Matt!” Foggy says, and just like that, all the drowsiness in his voice instantly evaporates, “you just get in?” 

“Just get in?” He laughs. “Sounds like I just got off the red eye. Like, ‘sorry to do this to you man, but can you pick me up from LaGuardia?’”

“Noooo,” Foggy moans dramatically, and Matt has to mime giving his friend an imaginary fist bump for taking the joke and running with it. “Traffic’s gonna suck. Oh, wait!” he adds brightly. “I just remembered. I don’t actually own a car! Looks like you’re shit outta luck, Murdock.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Matt deadpans, then: “no, actually I was calling to see if you were interested in breakfast?”

“You buying?”

“Well, I am offering.”

“Sure, why the hell not. Got someplace in mind, or--”

“I thought I’d come by. If that’s okay.”

“Cool with me, just…” Foggy says, bed sheets rustling as he shifts on the bed, “don’t be in a big hurry to get here, huh?”

He can’t help but to laugh at that. “Time to get out of bed, Fog.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

*

Foggy’s still toweling his hair when he opens the door to let Matt inside. “You do know what ‘take your time’ means, correct?” he complains, over-selling it with the hair toweling. “I am barely out of the shower.”

“Actually you said,” and here he balances his cane and the paper bag carrying their breakfast in one hand, and curls his fingers to make obnoxiously exaggerated air quotes with the other, “‘don’t be in a big hurry,’” because he can be be a pedantic ass when he wants to be. Then with a completely straight face, he adds, “please tell me you put some clothes on before letting me in here.” 

“Pfft. Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Maybe it’s best I don’t,” he says, even though he knows perfectly well that Foggy’s wearing a well-worn pair of slacks, and a brand-new shirt, still open and unbuttoned. 

Foggy disappears into the bathroom to hang up the towel, and as he does, Matt heads toward the kitchen counter. Collapses his cane, slaps it on the counter, and sets down the paper bag containing the pair of bagels he’d brought and the tub of plain cream cheese. 

As Foggy exits the bathroom and makes his way over to where Matt’s standing, he starts buttoning up his shirt and says, “how ‘bout I put us on some coffee.”

He makes a noise in the affirmative, and listens as Foggy goes about setting up his stainless steel stovetop coffee percolator. 

(“Are you sure _you’re_ not the time traveler around here,” he once joked, because Foggy could be weirdly anachronistic at times. And not in a consciously hipster sort of way, either. The percolator is an good example. He’s owned that thing for as long as Matt’s known him, and it was ancient even then. At least the coffee it makes is sufficiently terrible.)

“So what's this about, anyway,” Foggy calls as he fishes out creamer from the refrigerator.

“What makes you think I have an ulterior motive.”

“Matt, you always have an ulterior motive.”

He opens up the container of cream cheese a little too forcefully. 

“Matt.”

“What,” he says, spreading his plain bagel so aggressively the plastic knife breaks in his hand. 

“Holy on edge.”

“I'm not--” he sets the down the broken pieces of plastic, feels around for a napkin, and breathes out at he wipes a large glob of cream cheese from the heel of his hand. 

“Matt,” Foggy repeats. Angry he'd understand, but Foggy sounds… he just sounds sad.

“It's fine. It's not… It's fine.”

Gently, so very gently he says, “this about yesterday?”

“No,” he lies.

Bringing over the coffee, (black, no sugar) Foggy starts, “look, I--” and after he’s set down the mugs, places his hand on top of Matt’s trembling one. 

“I don't want you to--” _leave me behind._ He inhales through his nose. “I don’t want to drag you down.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean.”

“I uh. Okay, so, because of what happened yesterday, I’m behind you now by about six months? And I. I always assumed… and that’s on me, I totally get that, but. I just. I thought we were doing this together, you know? And… I mean, I’ve _been_ there, I know it happens, but I can't just _assume_ these things, can I.

“So. If something comes along, Foggy, an opportunity, a job, anything, please. You have to promise me. Promise you won’t let me hold you back. You don’t have to... I mean, don’t wait for me.”

Foggy huffs under his breath before taking an enormous bite of his own bagel while Matt stands and waits, and tries not to let the uncertainty eat him alive.

“Literally not a worry,” he finally says through a mouthful of bagel.

He tries not to feel insulted. “Why, did something… did you accept a job offer, or. I mean, it’s okay if you did, it’s not--”

“Hey, no. Nothing like that. C’mon, Matty,” Foggy says through another bite.

“You think I’m pouting,” he pouts. 

“That’s ‘cause you are. You’re not holding me back, Jesus. I hate that you even think that.” He chews some more. “It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

“Hey,” he says, trying to force some levity into the situation, “isn’t that usually my line?”

“Ha, see? You’re so used to knowing how everything’ll play out you don’t know how to handle it when you don’t.”

“Yeah, and that’s kinda my point.” He picks at the broken pieces of what used to be his plastic knife. Runs his thumb along the serrated edge of the blade. “I don’t actually know shit, do I. I just think I do. And I make a whole lot of assumptions along the way.”

“That is surprising insightful of you. But I’m pretty sure you’re overthinking things.”

“Is that so.”

“Yup. And I would totally let you in on why I think so, but sorry pal. Can’t violate the Temporal Prime Directive.”

Matt laughs. “This isn’t Star Trek, Fog.”

“Maybe it is. You don’t know.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, finally getting around to eating his own bagel. “I’m still waiting for a food replicator of my very own.”

“There you go. Though I’m not so sure about replicated bagels.”

He scrunches his nose. “Those would be terrible.”

“I know, right. Just wouldn’t be the same, would they.”

He nods in agreement, and finishes his breakfast, trying to forget about the concept of fake New York bagels.

*

Later that night, Matt gets up to relieve his bladder, moving through his apartment largely on autopilot. On the return trip, he stubs his toe as if someone had broken into his apartment while he slept and rearranged his furniture. (Which isn’t as unlikely as it sounds. Foggy once pulled that exact prank once upon a time back in college. Tried to anyway. What can you do except to play along?) but it’s the middle of the night, and here he is, barely a half degree above sleepwalking. So instead of giving it a second thought, he just grunts, shakes his head at his carelessness, and crawls back into bed. 

Several hours later, and someone’s shaking him, poking him in the arm. 

“Heya, sleepyhead.”

It takes an embarrassingly long time for his brain to catch up to what’s happening. “Foggy,” he says, confused. “Why are you in my bedroom.”

“Who’s bedroom, now? You do know you don’t actually live here, right?” 

He thrust out his arm and pats at the bed, gathers up a handful of stiff bedsheet and has to stifle a surprised huff. Yeah, this isn’t his bed. Oops.

Foggy chuckles warmly at him. “It’s okay. Try to get back to sleep if you can. I know you tend to have a tough time when you’re out and about.” Matt grins at ‘out and about’ as a euphemism for traveling, and Foggy leans over him to plant a small kiss on his forehead, which. Okay, sure.

“Um.”

Foggy chuckles again, says, “I have to head out. Big day, ya know? But I wanted to make sure you didn’t wake up somewhere unfamiliar and alone.”

His head nestles deeper into the warm pillow, and the entire world smells like Foggy. 

”Thanks,” he says, smiling so wide his cheeks ache. Hot tears stream down his cheek as he drifts off to sleep, safe and snug inside the warm cocoon of Foggy’s bed. 

**

A month later, and he finds himself crouched behind a lovely and stench-filled dumpster baking under a hot sun.

Well, it’s certainly not the first time he finds himself in the trash, now is it. 

He sighs, but he needs to move past the odor. None of that information is helpful here, so what else we got? 

Inside, he smells fresh pastries and coffee. Warm and inviting. There’s that dull roar as people converse inside a crowded space, and Foggy in a near panic as Matt seizes on a cold bathroom floor.

“Shit,” he mutters, because he needs a plan. His top priority right now is to get inside and collect the clothing that should, theoretically, still be there.

Just the opportunity opens for him when a door, the back door, swings wide, and a frazzled employee appears, sighing audibly as he collapses on the overturned milk crate propping the door open. The young man, no more than a kid really, roots around inside an apron pocket until Matt’s nose is assaulted with that distinctive burn of a lit cigarette. It’s all he can do to suppress an irritated cough.

Crinkling his nose, he considers his options.

He could take the kid out. Piece of cake. Sneak up on him, give him the drop, and... liberate him of his clothing. Stroll right into the coffee shop just as if he belonged there.

Here’s the catch, though. Matt has never beaten up some poor soul for their clothing, and he doesn’t intend to start now. His condition, he firmly believes, is his problem to worry about, and only his. 

So that isn’t an option. Instead, he stays stock-still and waits the guy out, and with any luck, he’ll go and leave the door still propped open for him once break time is over.  
Or not. The guys gets up, grinds his cigarette butt into the ground with the toe his shoe, and starts dragging the milk crate back inside. This is the moment Matt has to move, and he has to move fast, otherwise the door’ll click shut behind the guy, locking him out, and then he’ll be back to square one.

After a quick survey of his environment, he finds a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes just inside the dumpster. Reaches in, careful not to disturb the heavy lid, then grabs the first flattened box his hands land on. Crams the soggy cardboard into the door jamb to stop it from latching shut, and waltzes right in, just as if he belonged there.  
Immediately to his right sits a small room, not much bigger than a closet. He’s guessing a break/storage room. Fortunately for him, the coffee shop is busy enough to require all hands up front, so he’s all alone. In the center of the room is a card table with four folding chairs tucked underneath, and along the back wall sits a row of hooks, presumably for jackets. At the far end of the row hangs a hooded sweater, though why anyone would bring that into work in this heat is beyond him. 

He snatches that up, slips it on and zips it up as far as it’ll go. The sweater rides too high on his torso to cover his lower half, so tilts his head to find something else to pilfer.

In the right-hand corner sits a stack of boxes, and inside the box stacked at the top is about a dozen plastic-wrapped packages each containing a folded thing made of cloth. Shirts maybe. He rushes over and rips into the first one he finds. Work aprons. Excellent. He folds the one in his hands in half, and ties it around his back. He reaches in for a second one, folding that one in half as well, drapes it across his bottom, and ties it in front. It probably looks ridiculous, but as least he isn’t naked.

Exiting the room, he keeps his ear out for any employees, but they’re still all up front, tending to the morning rush.

So far so good. The men’s room is just outside the back room, and when he finally slips in, he collapses against the door as if someone’s cut his strings.

“Matt!” Foggy says, scrambling up from the floor where Matt’s clothing still sits in a heap. “What the fuck are you wearing.”

“Had to improvise,” he says.

“Oh,” Foggy says, sounding a little baffled. “Okay. Um. Is it... normal for you to come back so soon?”

So soon? He doesn’t… “Oh, no,” he says, realizing what Foggy meant. “No. It’s a few weeks later.” 

“Oh,” Foggy says again, with that same note of confusion in his voice. Then: “I sure hope no one saw you, buddy.”

“They didn’t.”

“No offense, Matt, but you have no way of knowing that.”

Shit. Sometimes he forgets.

“Pretty sure,” he dodges.

Seemingly satisfied with that, Foggy says, “okay,” and starts gathering up Matt’s clothes. “We can’t stay here. You,” he says, unceremoniously dumping the pile into Matt’s lap, “need put some real clothes on.” 

Matt groans in protest. He doesn’t want to get off the floor, so Foggy sternly says, “you had a seizure, Matt. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

“Fuck,” he mutters, because he honestly forgot about that. He stands, says, “okay,” and sheds his stolen clothes like skin. Once he’s naked again, Foggy turns his back to give him some privacy. 

Once he’s done buttoning up his shirt, adjusting his tie, he has a realization. “How is it there’s no one else in here. I had a seizure--”

“Matt. You weren’t gone more than a minute.”

“Jesus,” he says. _Really?_ “So you called the paramedics.”

“While you were seizing. Yes.”

“Can you--” he starts, but cuts himself off when he hears the urgent scream of ambulance sirens. He has to remind himself not to comment on this. He shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Come on,” Foggy says. “Be cool.” And Matt grabs onto his elbow, exiting the restroom as if nothing were amiss.

They spill out onto the sidewalk just as the paramedics arrive, and book it out of there. It’s an incredibly shitty thing to do, but they have places to be, bar exams to take, and Matt really, really doesn’t want to deal with paramedics.

“What if they found out,” he says, trying not to shudder. “About, you know,” and makes a vague gesture toward himself, meant to indicate his condition. 

“You’re paranoid,” Foggy says. “And I don’t see what the big deal is, anyway. People find out, and you’ll what. Get treatment? God forbid.”

“It’s not that simple, Foggy,” he says. He really, really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now.

“It could be, if you let it.”

Matt huffs out disapprovingly, but doesn’t otherwise comment. They just continue onward toward the test facility.

“Okay,” Matt say, in the moments before they’re checked in and shown their seats. “Wish me luck.”

“Wish us both luck, you mean. And you got an extra month of study-time, so I don’t even want to hear any complaints.”

Yeah,” Matt says through a large exhale. “I just need to stay here long enough to get through it. If you have any suggestions…” he gestures widely. “I’m all ears.”

“Preferably the kind that doesn’t come in pill form?”

“Don’t even joke,” he says through a laugh.

Foggy claps Matt on the back. Says, “best of luck, buddy. Seriously.”

Matt nods, jostles his body against Foggy’s just a woman approaches and says, “Mr. Murdock?”

“That’s you,” Foggy helpfully whispers, and moves on to find his seat.

He turns toward the woman, starts fidgeting with the top of his cane. “Yes, uh. Yes?”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’m Jen. I can show you to your seat if you’d like. We have all the accommodations you’ve requested set up for you and ready to go.”

“Great, fantastic,” he says, relieved. One less thing to worry about. “Thank you.”

The desks are all lined up in neat rows inside the wide, open space of the Javits Center’s examination room and the din of anxious test takers is almost too much for him. The way the wall of sound blankets over everything, fills up the cathedral-like dome overhead.

The temperature inside the building rises another degree, and it’s already too hot, almost stifling. He sways on his feet when a touch of dizziness overtakes him. Clenches his fists to get it under control. 

“Mr. Murdock?” Jen says, a note of concern in her voice.

“No, it’s okay. I’m--”

“You’re gonna do fine,” she warmly says. Squeezes his elbow before vanishing into the crowd.

“Okay,” he says to himself. Time travel doesn’t exist. The outside world? Doesn’t exist. Nothing else except for him, this desk, and the work in front of him.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> choice of venue inspired by this video:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohqFI8hhVaU&t=112s


	18. Chapter 18

*

Predictably enough, Foggy floats the idea of going out for celebratory drinks pretty much the second the convention center’s doors swing open and the horde of tired and hopeful lawyers-to-be spill out into the warm summer evening.

“What, you’re teetotaler all of a sudden?” Foggy complains when Matt doesn’t answer. He picks at the button on his shirt cuff and sways on his toes.

“No,” he says, stifling a yawn. “I’m just… I’m--” He’s just tired. Really fucking tired.

“--waiting for my ride.” 

“What ride? Josie’s isn’t _that_ far from here, you know. ”

“No, I know… that’s not what I mean.” He runs his fingers over the grip of his cane, aware of the crowd of people within earshot. He leans right into Foggy’s personal space and keeps his voice pitched low. “You know.” And here he moves his hands as if imitating a puff of smoke, “ _‘Poof’_.” 

“Oh,” Foggy says, dragging out the word. Matt imagines a lightbulb appearing over his head the moment Foggy realizes his meaning. _Ding!_ “I guess I forgot you were… Visiting.”

Matt snorts at ‘visiting’ and gives a vague nod of his head. “Yeah. So, I um. I want to try to catch up on sleep if I can?” Plus, he’d rather not travel while inebriated if he can possibly avoid it.

Christ. Maybe he should think about cutting back on the drinking. It’s probably a minor miracle that he hasn’t ended up in Time Travel Survival Mode half in the wrapper. 

He groans, so Foggy says, “yeah, of course--”

“--I mean, I don’t wanna bail on you--”

“--No, I get it. Don’t worry about it.”

“But hey,” Matt says, slapping Foggy on the shoulder, “at least you’ll have the advantage over me for a change.”

“Oh my god,” Foggy says. “Present-you has no idea you’ve even made it here. This is gonna be great!” 

Through an amused smile Matt says, “yeah, feel free to milk that for all it’s worth, too, because I had to sweat that out for nearly a month,” and Foggy’s delighted laughter at Matt’s expense is full and bright and everything he could ever hope for.

“My how the tables have turned.” Foggy says, going for classic cartoon villain. Moustache twirling and all. 

They part ways and say their goodbyes. When he makes it back to his place, the short hair the back of his neck stands before he’s even gotten the key in the door, and when he does open it, he just hovers over the threshold for several long seconds, and listens.

Once inside, he shuts the door behind him as quietly as possible, and moves through the apartment with stealth, keeping his senses wide open and on full alert. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but he has this nagging suspicion that someone else has been in here. 

He sorts through the possibilities. He doesn’t really know anyone who would just waltz in and make themselves at home. Apart from him, that is, but he doesn’t think so. Present-native Matt is still cooling his heels at the future home of Nelson and Murdock, attorneys at law. And while it’s possible he’s picking up on the echoes of a future version of himself, he doesn't think that’s it either. Matt, he… he tends to read as neutral to himself without a physical presence to ping off of. 

It’s… baffling, to be honest. He can’t find any evidence of intrusion. Nothing is missing or out of place. There are no unfamiliar odors hanging in the air, or anything else that doesn’t belong. Nothing at all to corroborate his initial suspicion.

He gives a frustrated huff and shakes his head. He’s just… he’s just really tired. That’s all this was. He’s tired and worn out, and he’s just letting his imagination run away with him. 

The best thing for him to do right now would be to just try to forget the whole thing. Put it out of his mind and focus on the here and now. (Admittedly, he’s never been very great at that…) Settle in for the night, take a hot shower, and hell, maybe even try to get some actual sleep before he gets pulled back to the present.

Of course, whatever invisible mechanism is behind his time traveling apparently has other plans for him. And a pretty fucked up sense of humor as it turns out, because not moments after he’s stepped out the shower and toweling off his hair, the rubber band snaps, and he’s sent back to the present on top of a nice big pile of rotting garbage, face-first. 

“Great,” he grumbles, as he tries to swat away a bee buzzing just above his head. New Yorkers are too hurried to bother looking into the alleyways they pass by, so no one will notice the naked man in the trash. So he plugs his nose, tries not to gag on the smell of rotting food waste, and pulls himself up to standing. Brushes away something wet and slimy from his knees, and climbs up the nearest fire escape to scour the rooftops to raid some poor soul’s clothesline. 

“Let’s try this again,” he says out loud when he gets back home. Strips off his ill-fitting and ill-begotten clothing right in the middle of his living room, and heads straight for the shower to wash away the stink of rotting garbage.

And once again, after he’s dried off, he crawls straight into bed still naked, and tries to fall asleep.

*

Like many fellow newly barred attorneys, Matt and Foggy cast their nets far and wide in hopes of scoring something big in the choppy seas of the competitive job-market. 

But it’s all so much bullshit. The whole song and dance of ‘doing it right,’ and ‘going through the motions’. He knows where he’s going to land. Foggy too. They just have to get there.

And he do has to put in a little effort to get his friend on board with the whole trusting him about the future thing, because the fish aren’t biting, and Foggy’s starting to panic.

“I’m not a puppy, you know. I can’t just keep nipping at your heels as my big life strategy,” Foggy says over breakfast. 

“I know that,” Matt says, trying to keep his tone light. “but Foggy, you aren’t hearing me. _I have told you_ we--”

“I know what you have told me, Matthew, but we need actual _jobs_ , not hypotheticals.”

“Nelson and Murdock isn’t a _hypothetical_.” Why does he not get that? “It’s a real thing that really exists. I know this for a fact, because I have actually been there.” He shrugs. “We settled this. Years ago, I thought.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Foggy says, then he makes some kind of complicated hand gesture that Matt has trouble parsing. “But you need to learn how to live in the present, Matty.”

“Story of my life,” he mutters.

“Dreams are nice, but we need a gameplan.” Foggy says, emphatically gesturing at the floor. “And I mean for right now. Not six months from now, not two years from now, but now-now. And definitely not something we might have discussed _several years ago_. I get that maybe it all bleeds together for you, but Jesus H.”

“It’ll work out, Foggy. You’ll see.”

“You always say that!”

“And have I ever been wrong?”

“How the hell should I know!” he yells, and Matt breathes out hard through his nose.

“Okay,” he says. Breathes out again, this time to get his own anger under control. He hates this. He and Foggy. They’re always fighting. “Can we… set this aside for now? Wait and see what happens… or, or we can just keep doing what we’ve been doing, and--”

“--and wait and see what happens?”

“I’m just saying, you’re getting all worked up for nothing, and--”

“-- _I’m_ getting worked up.”

“Yes! And if you just _trusted_ me on this--”

“I do trust you, Matty, I do, and I know you’re not bullshitting me with all this future stuff--I have known you way too long for that, but come on. If you can’t see where I’m coming from--”

“--I do, though! I really do. And... I realize I probably sound crazy to you. I mean, in this market? Opening up own firm? It probably sounds _ludicrous_ , but--”

“No buts, Matty, no buts because we can’t pay our bills on buts.” Foggy audibly breathes out through his nose, probably counting down from ten, or something, and continues, “but.” He stretches the word out: Buuuut. “But I do trust you on this.” 

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Foggy agrees, and that’s all that’s needed for them to set the topic aside for the time being. 

*

Quietly, Matt starts looking into all the ins and outs required to get their business off the ground. He probably should let Foggy in on that, but for now it’s strictly in the research phase. There’s no harm in that keeping it close to the vest, and besides, N&M is going to happen, so... why not help it along a little.

Shortly after that the phone call they’ve been waiting for comes in, and Matt and Foggy both start their internship at L&Z the following Monday.

“It’s a broom closet,” Foggy complains once they’re given their first assignment and shown to their office. To be fair, ‘office’ is a pretty generous description: it’s literally a file storage room with a pair of desks pushed together.

Matt purses his lips, so Foggy says, “don’t you start.”

He puts his hands up, palms forward. _I haven’t said a word._

Though maybe Matt’s coming across as more distracted than usual, because a few days later Foggy mutters at him, “focus on the now, Matthew.” Which. Yeah. Not his strongest suit.

*

Going forward, Matt tries to take a more mindful approach to everything he does. During the day, he brings nothing but his full attention and the strictest of professionalism to the law firm. And at night he throws himself into his training regimen at the gym, and he puts in as many hours of meditation as he can possibly stand. 

It’s a welcome distraction, this intense focus, but it’s a distraction nonetheless, and he knows it. Knows he can’t keep this pace forever, especially since he isn’t sleeping.

Still, the nagging itch that he’s somehow on the wrong path claws and scratches at him. 

It isn’t possible to be on the wrong path. It’s not, because that’s not how time travel works. Past, present, and future are all laid open like a book, he just gets to be one of the lucky souls who can flip through the pages. 

So there’s nothing to worry about. 

“Do you…” he starts, when Foggy enters their little closet-office. “Do you ever worry about timeline divergences? Say if we end up on the wrong one or something?” 

Foggy acts like Matt hadn't said a thing. He just continues on to his desk and deposits an entire armful of bagels onto it. Then sits and begins loudly chewing through an onion bagel. After audibly swallowing he says, “nope. Because I know that’s not actually a thing.”

After a beat: “It’s not, right?”

“I don’t know,” Matt quietly says. “But. Something doesn't feel right, I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

He still hasn’t told Foggy about that strange night in his apartment. The one where he’d felt the echo of someone else’s presence. Or how he isn’t really sleeping, or even how he’s started to worry that maybe things haven’t exactly been right ever since he had that seizure on the bathroom floor the morning of the bar...

“Okay, so even if we are on the wrong timeline or whatever--and I am not conceding that we are, by the way--is there anything we could do about it?”

“No,” he admits. “Probably not. I mean, I’ve never been able to directly change anything, so.”

“Well, okay then. There’s you’re answer.”

“Yeah,” he says, “you’re probably right,” even though he’s not sure he really believes it. “But… you’re ha-- I mean, this is where you want to be?”

“Me? Hell yes. Hang here long enough, and we are guaranteed permanent employment. Put our degrees to use, make a couple bucks?”

“Is money what’s most important here? What about helping people? What about doing the right thing?"

“God, you and me, we're always going around in circles with this,” Foggy complains. "You're too focused on the future where everything is perfect, and we are exactly the justice-serving do-gooders you imagine us to be. And just because life isn’t unfolding precisely the way you expected, doesn’t mean it’s time to start panicking. Jesus.” 

_Everything isn’t perfect in the future, Foggy, you hate me for large chunks of it._

Though he wisely keeps that thought to himself. Foggy continues: “Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but you need to stay in the present, Matthew. It’s all some of us have.”

*

It’s all so much corporate bullshit, though. 

Matt bites his tongue and keeps his head down whenever they have to defend a shady business whenever they see fit to bend or even break the law whenever it suits their bottom line. Which of course, is all the time.

The last straw comes when the Roxxon Corporation threatens to countersue a dying old man, and Matt knows, deep down to his very soul that he cannot keep doing this. 

This is definitely the wrong path, just not in the way he feared.

“This is not justice,” Matt argues afterwards. “What happened out there was wrong, and you know it.”

“Sometimes I really hate you,” Foggy says, but he doesn’t sound like he means it.

Matt gives him a confused look, so he adds: “Can I tell you a secret?”

He snorts. “I am all ears,” he says.

Foggy start emptying file boxes and packing away some of his stuff. “I may have been looking into the kind of things we’d need in order to start our own business…”

“Yes!” Matt says with a fist to the air. “Foggy this is great! I don’t know what to--”

“Don’t start celebrating yet, Mother Teresa. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

But, it’s going to be worth it.

*


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *just a heads up: the child molester thing happens toward the end of this chapter. I don't actually show that, but it's still pretty upsetting.*

*

The first time Matt got to go down into the cellar with his dad, it was to help him get the ‘ **X-MAS!** ’ box out of storage and bring it back up into the apartment.

For years he had wanted to go down there with his dad, and each year his dad had said no, he was still too little, maybe when he was a little older. And when he was six he was finally allowed to go! “Sure,” his dad had said. “I could use another pair of hands.” It was such a big feeling too, like being a grown-up, but he was kind of scared too, it was so dark down there. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, and his dad had been right, maybe he was still too little. Standing at the top of the stairs, he thought about turning around and going right back into the apartment where it was warm and bright and nothing could hurt him.

“Nothin’ to be scared of,” his dad said, and he tried reassuring him with a wide, bright smile. Matt doesn’t remember if it had actually worked, but he knows he nodded obediently, and trailed after him.

His hesitance hadn’t diminished any when they reached the caged off storage area at the back of the cellar. It was so dark, and there were spiders everywhere.

He had to keep himself from checking his clothes and shaking his head like a big wet dog in case he’d picked up any eight-legged hitchhikers. They gave him the heebie-jeebies, but he wanted to be brave for his dad. Being allowed down in the cellar at all was a big kid privilege, and if he was too scared, maybe his dad would send him right back upstairs, and never allow him downstairs again. It was a strange feeling, being so at war with himself. He wanted nothing more than to be big and brave and strong, but he also wanted to thunder up those stairs and go right back into the safety of their warm apartment.

His dad then handed him a dulled silver key. Their apartment number was etched across its head, and Matt understood immediately that it was his job to unlock the closet-sized cage which held all the things they either didn’t use often enough, or didn’t have room for inside the house.

He’d never opened a lock before, but it seemed his tiny fingers were perfect for the job. It opened right up, no problem.

He beamed at his dad who gave him a ‘good job,’ or an ‘atta boy,’ or something similar.

Anyway, the cage door swung right open, and his dad had reached right up for the top shelf, and pulled down the thing they’d come for: a dust-covered cardboard box with the word ‘ **X-MAS!** ’ printed on it in big, bold letters.

(The Christmas before, his dad had handed him a fat black magic marker and asked him if he’d like to do him a favor and label the box for him. For posterity, he said. Matt understood that his was an important job, and he took great care to make each letter as neat and even as possible. They ended up all slanting sharply downward, but his dad didn’t care, so neither did he. For all their Christmases remaining, Matt would sometimes imagine those letters sliding off the box and breaking apart at the joints until they were nothing more than a pile of bold lines and sharp angles. And after he lost his sight, he said, ‘are the letters still there?’ and Jack, not privy to Matt’s private joke, allowed him to stick on a Braille label somewhere underneath them. He still imagined the magic marker letters sliding off, but the Braille label stayed firmly in place.)

The **X-MAS!** box (sans label, of course) was pretty ancient, older than Jack himself, probably, but Matt loved everything about it. And inside it. Loved all those gaudy glass Christmas bulbs; the thick gold and silver garland; the thin, shimmering metallic icicles that managed to get just everywhere, strands and strands of the stuff hidden in vents and ground into the carpet long after the tree and everything else had been packed up and put away; his late grandmother’s creche, and each of the tiny figures, all of them made of pewter; the tacky ceramic angels; the plastic candles with the orange light bulbs that had to be scotch-taped onto each windowsill, they were so top-heavy; the glitter encrusted paper snowflake-thing he’d made in kindergarten; all of it. Above all else, though, he loved the time he got to spend alone with his dad. It was magical. (And Matt, he hasn’t decorated for the holidays since, much to Foggy’s disappointed. By the time Christmas had rolled around during their first year in school together, Foggy had orchestrated a full out campaign meant to convince Matt just how wonderful, how magical decorating their tiny dorm could be. Sure, it wouldn’t be the same, but that was the whole point! They could create their own traditions now that they were all grown up and on their own. Matt, though, he just couldn’t bring himself to… he didn’t think there was much of a point. He did accept the standing invitation to have Christmas with Foggy’s family, and he was polite, and he smiled a lot, and he never, ever let on that this time of year was difficult for him. He knew they meant well, and they were great folks, they really were, but they felt sorry for him enough as it was.) 

Anyway, his dad carried the box back upstairs, and Matt had never been more relieved.

“Would ya look at this mess,” his dad muttered once he'd set the box down onto the living room carpet. Complaining, but only half-heartedly so. He winked good-naturedly at Matt, and dug around inside the box for longer than was strictly necessary. For dramatic effect Matt supposed. Then, with a great flourish, he hauled out the thing he’d been after, and held it up high enough so Matt could really get a good look at it. The thing held in those huge and mangled boxer’s hands wasn’t so much a string of lights as it was a basketball made of green wire, multi-colored opaque incandescent light bulbs, and knots. Lots and lots of knots. 

If there’s one thing he remembers from that day though, it’s how frustrated he’d gotten as he tried untangling the whole twisting Gordian mess. How entirely unsuited his tiny fingers were for the job. He was frustrated, and angry, and he wanted to throw the thing across the room, watch it smash against a wall, and maybe it would break apart they way he imagined his thick, black **X-MAS** letters would. Then, without saying a single a word, his dad had given him a serious look, and plucked the whole mess of wire right from his hands. It was like he’d plucked away his frustrations, too. So he watched his dad as he worked, awed as the old man’s thick fingers worked and teased and pulled and pried. But the thing that really stands out in his memory of that day was his dad’s knuckles. Not just how they moved as they worked, but how they _looked_. They were so huge and swollen, bruised, scabbed over, broken from too many fights, and he remembers the way they looked against that ball of wire as it twisted through those mangled hands. Those sore knuckles had to have made the work unbearable, but it never once fazed him. Or, at least he hadn’t made any noises about it. No verbal complaints, no groans of pain, no nothing. He just kept at it, working right through the tedium of it, and through the pain of it, and kept working until the job was done. It was amazing.

His dad had laughed a little in a self-deprecating manner when Matt commented on the quiet show of strength he’d just witnessed. “There’s no magic involved. It’s just focus. Say you’re in the ring against a guy, right, and he’s bigger and stronger than you. Got more wins under his belt. So you go, ‘look at this guy. I don’t stand a chance against a guy like that.’ But thinkin’ that way’ll have you beat before the thing’s even started. So how do you get through it? This is what you gotta do: focus on your two fists, and nothing else. Don’t think about how many fights the guy’s already won, ‘cause you’re not in any of those other fights. You’re in this one. And make sure you don’t think ahead to the end of the fight, either, don’t worry yet about about winning or losing, ‘cause it ain’t over till you hear that bell. So now there’s nothing left but the moment you’re in. Just worry about completing this punch, then the next one, and then the next. You go down, you get up and do it some more. That’s it. And it’s the same with the Christmas lights. You take in how big the problem is, and you get so overwhelmed by it, you’ll want to quit before you even started. So just take it one step at a time. This is true whether it’s for boxing or anything else in life. You understand what I’m saying?”

Matt’s not sure if he had understood then, but he knows he nodded like a good, obedient son, and was rewarded for it with a wide grin and a playful swat to the head. 

And his dad had been right, of course he had, Jack Murdock was a wiser man than anyone was willing to give him credit for, but for now, right now, he needs to figure out what comes next. Because today he climbed the tallest building he could find, and like the reckless idiot that he is, he swan-dived off the top of it without a second’s thought to where--or how--he was going to land. 

Well, that’s not entirely true, now is it. He does know. He just doesn’t know if it’ll be a soft landing, or a flame-engulfed disaster.

(Don’t turn tail and run back into the house. Be big and brave and strong.)

Christ. If only Jack had been a time traveler, too. Then maybe he could come here and do all this hard work for him.

He rolls his aching neck and shoulders. Unfolds his legs from the half lotus he’d been sitting in. Moves to get up, because he's been sitting here for entirely too long and the only thing he’s accomplished is feeling sorry for himself. 

So he pushes himself up to standing. But as he does, his legs buckle and he ends up falling to the floor. Hard. As he goes down, time slows. way. down. for him until it seems to almost stop, and he thinks that maybe he’s become unstuck again. 

_“Not now not now not now please god not now.”_

He’s close to tears, but at least he doesn’t go through the floor. “Jesus,” he mutters, because he tripped and fell. That’s all. Landed hard enough to hurt, sure, but he didn’t travel. He’s here, he’s still here in his own living room, and he’s not sure whether he’s relieved or disappointed.

He’s kind of sweaty now, and a little bit shaky, so he gets up to take a shower and maybe try to get in some sleep if he possibly can. A big if.

Maybe it’s because he’s feeling a little bit fragile, a little unsteady on his feet, but he’s hit with an intense bout of nausea as every sound from seemingly every corner of the city assaults his brain. He curls in on himself, hands flying up to his ears, because it’s too loud, it’s all so loud, and he can’t, he can’t…

Stop. Breathe. Do it like this: In out in out in out…

Okay. Next, sort through it all, weed out everything that’s not needed. Well, nothing from outside is actually needed, but he needs to sift through it all a little bit at a time. Identify each and every discrete bit of information before he can dismiss it as irrelevant. Otherwise it might all get away from him again.

He breathes, carefully, deliberately, and winnows away the din of New York City late at night.

He thinks he’s got it under control when a single sound hangs suspended in the air around him. It’s sharp and desperate and he thinks that maybe this is what initially set him off. This is what he’d picked up on a subconscious level, and it overwhelmed him because it’s just so… it’s--

The cries of a small child, a little girl….

And.

He’s breathing hard, standing in the middle of his living room (when did he get back on his feet?) and his body wants to move, go forward, run, run, but he doesn’t…

Once his head clears, and everything’s gone back to manageable levels, he picks up the phone to file a report--like you’re supposed to--and for the rest of the night he’s antsy and anxious. Tries to sleep but just tosses and turns. Tosses and turns.

This goes on for two more nights, and on the third night, he decides to do something about it.

Well, truthfully he solidified his decision earlier in the day; if he hears it again tonight, he had said to himself, he’s gonna go after the piece of shit. Walked into the store and asked the nice girl at the counter to help him find a nice, big hooded sweater. Black. And a t-shirt, too. Yes, also in black, that’d be great, thanks. Big, harmless smile. Everything paid for in cash.

At home, he tears a long strip from the black t-shirt, and stuffs it into his pocket. Searches his closet for an old pair of sneakers; he’ll throw them away after the job is done, and he hopes and prays it won't come to that, but...

 

He stands in the middle of his living room, waiting. His hands are sweaty, and he's overcome by the strangest sensation. All of time seems to stretch out infinitely, in all directions, before collapsing down into a singular pinpoint of time. This is it, this the demarcation. He realizes that now. 

He heads up to the roof and stands on the ledge, poised and ready to go. “Give me an excuse, asshole.” And the asshole does.

When he finds the guy, time slows right down. One punch, then the next, and then the next one after that. Till it’s done. Till the guy won’t be able to hurt anyone else, ever again. “And if you do, I’ll know.”

Matt’s never bled for anyone else before. His hands are blood-drenched from pummelling the guy, sure, but the guy also had managed to get in a lucky shot and split Matt’s lip right open.

It’s a good feeling. He did good, and he is good, and when he gets home he sleeps good, too. Better than he has in a long, long time.

*


	20. Chapter 20

*

“Holy shit,” Foggy says when Matt finally arrives at Josie’s and carefully leverages himself into his seat. Every muscle, every particle in his body aches. “Let me guess; I should see the other guys?” 

Frankly, yes, though he desperately prays Foggy will never, ever have to.

Still, Matt’s thrown off by the question. It feels completely out of context, or maybe Matt’s the one out of context. He’s not sure. His mouth gapes open, moves around words that refuse to come. 

Pain explodes as the movement stretches and aggravates the open wound on his bottom lip, and he cannot begin to imagine how he must look to Foggy right now. He does remember how his dad would often look right after a fight, though. His face huge and swollen, brow bloodied, bottom lip fat and split, busted open like an overcooked sausage.

Matt must look a lot like that now. 

Next to him, Foggy’s body language shifts from loose and good-natured to wary and suspicious. It was a joke; he’d meant it as a joke and Matt was supposed to have taken it as such, especially since it was one Foggy has employed often whenever Matt’s been back from the boxing gym. And now he’s sitting here not responding the way Foggy expects him to. “I’m fine. Just have to be more careful.”

“Okay, just. I worry about you, you know?” Foggy’s voice is tender and earnest, and Foggy means well, he knows he does, but he also knows his friend’s concern stems from his long-standing believe that Matt is vulnerable when he's out there in Time Travel Land, which is incredibly unfortunate. He understands now that the front he’s carefully constructed these past several years must seem confusing and contradictory, given Foggy’s experience of him.

Well, that’ll all get up-ended soon enough. 

“Yeah, man,” he says. “I know you do. Just. Thank you. You know. For looking out for me.” Matt can smell that distinct scent of salt in the air just as Foggy blinks back unshed tears. Then Foggy’s hand inches across the sticky bar top toward his own folded ones, and Matt makes himself go very, very still.

He is incredibly aware of his own breathing. It’s the only thing he hears.

Foggy never makes contact, though, just snaps his hand away as if it had been burned, as if Matt himself was harmful to the touch, and he does his very best not to react. He can’t let on that he knows about all this drama unfolding, can’t let himself feel even the tiniest bit slighted.

“Anyway,” he says with a feigned laugh, hoping to alleviate some of the tension hanging over them.

“Have you noticed,” Foggy starts, and Matt has to swallow a smile; Foggy’s also aiming to redirect the conversation from the weirdness of the last few moments, “that we _still_ haven’t had our orders taken? I mean, why do we keep coming here, the service is terrible.”

“Wait. I thought we keep coming here _because_ the service is terrible.” 

A beat for effect, then: “I do believe you have a point.”

“I know I do. It’s why I said it.”

Just then Josie materializes in front of them. Right on cue. “What’ll you have, hun,” she says to Matt. She says it flatly; a rote response to one of a thousand interactions she’ll have to weather tonight. But it’s also her way of letting Matt know she’s there at all. A small consideration toward one of her many valued customers. Just don’t ever make the mistake of suggesting to her face that underneath the layer of stone-cold indifference lies a bleeding heart; he’s been a patron at this particular bar long enough to know you may just end up wearing some of it if you did.

He opens his mouth, almost asks for his usual--whisky, neat--but settles on ginger ale instead. “Hope you’re not the designated driver,” she mutters before jotting down Foggy’s order and then vanishing off to wherever it is she goes.

“...you’re not, right?” Foggy inexplicably says.

“What, driving? Of course not.” He makes it a point of raising his eyebrows and screwing up his face, like Foggy should know exactly what kind of idiot he is.  


Foggy answers in a forceful, emphatic whisper, “no, that’s not…. I mean.” He leans in close. “You know.”

Matt understands ‘you know’ in this context to mean ‘traveling,’ so he leans in to say in the same low voice, “I assume you mean that euphemistically.” 

Foggy none-so-subtly clears his throat. “You assume correctly.”

“Okay, well. I’m not. Not at the moment, anyway.”

“Not at the moment,” Foggy repeats blandly. Like he doesn’t quite understand what that string of words even mean.

Josie arrives just then with their drinks, and Matt, with his focus centered entirely on Foggy, on their conversation, startles at her voice. “Right in front of ya,” she says by way of apology, sliding his soda forward. The bottom of the glass scrapes across the wood grain as it goes, its path well-worn and familiar. She stops just short of his folded hands, and some of the soda sloshes onto the bar in front of him. He resists the urge to move his hands out of the way, to hide them, to keep his raw and swollen knuckles from coming into contact with the cold and slightly acidic liquid. Instead, he keeps his hands firmly on the sticky bar top, and offers Josie a warm, grateful smile and a polite ‘thank you.’

“Anyway,” he repeats after she’s disappeared again, “here’s to us.” 

“To us,” Foggy agrees. “To Nelson and Murdock.” And Matt has to do a small internal dance at that, because Foggy’s finally, finally gotten it right, gotten the order right. It means this thing that has been quietly brewing in the background of his life is a real thing that’s really happening, and things are finally, finally coming together. He knows it won’t last forever; he knows that, but he also knows that this new hopeful thing is something worth fighting for. And he plans on doing just that. While he still can.

*

“Well, I’d say I’d know it when I see it, but. You know.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I do try."

“Man, I just can’t-- I mean, you’ve really been there. Really for real. Like, we haven’t even _meet_ the real estate agent, but you know the place well enough to _describe_ it in full detail."

“Oh, shit. Did I travel without realizing it? I mean, my clothes don’t usually survive the trip, and I’m pretty sure I’m not naked right now, but if you don’t know, then maybe I did. So, listen. I know it must seem weird, but I promise I can explain it to you! See, we’re actually really good friends in the future and I am-” 

“--Not funny.” 

“Wait, so. Does that mean you just lied to me? Because I’m pretty sure you said I was. Actually, you said I was, and I quote, ‘hilarious.’” 

“Sarcasm, Matthew. Learn it. Live it. Love it.” 

“Anyway. So the appointment is all set up? With the Realtor?” 

“Yup. Monday morning, eight a.m. sharp.” 

“Cool. I um. I should tell you I won’t be around for breakfast on Sunday.” 

“‘Won’t be around’? Matt. What’s more important than freshly baked bagels, let me ask you.” 

“I have things. To do.” 

“Things.” 

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, things.” 

“And are you going to actually tell me about the oh so important _things_ you have to do, or are you gonna make me guess. Oh wait, I know! You are such the sly dog. You have a date that you didn’t want to tell me about! I am hurt, nay _scandalized_ that you felt you couldn’t trust your ol’ pal Foggy enough to…” 

“No, hey, listen. I don’t have a date. I. Uh. I’m planning on attending Mass this Sunday.” 

“Whoa. That’s-- Okay, no, that’s actually not all that surprising, but. Just seems kinda out of the blue. It is kinda out of the blue, isn’t it?” 

“Eh. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Met the priest traveling once; thought maybe it’s time to make it official.” 

“Oh wow, look at you. Okay, so. What’dya say we grab something after, then.” 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

“Cool. See ya when I see ya.” 

*

Matt is… in the process of building himself an outfit. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple, practical affair made of easily attainable pieces meant more for ease of movement than anything else. It’s a far cry from the devil suit thing he’ll eventually end up with, but it’s a good, solid start. He plans on adding onto it incrementally, as he expects experience will be his best teacher from this point on.

He stands up on his rooftop overlooking the city, and he listens. Really listens. There’s so much pain, so much of it digging its sharp claws straight into his skin, and he knows, he just knows he has to do something about it. Knows he can’t keep ignoring it, can't keep his head in the sand. 

God. For too long, he'd been this dumb, naive kid. Too busy lying to himself about who and what he is. Too far in denial. 

Well, he knows better now, and now he's going to do something about it. 

First though. First he has something important to take care of. 

* 

“Forgive me, Father. It’s been. Too long since my last confession.” And once Matt opens his mouth and starts talking, once the words start spilling out, he finds they keep pouring out of him like a deluge. All those old wounds still festering down in the deep, dark depths of his subconscious; they all come bubbling up to the surface as he unburdens his soul; tells this priest about his dad, about how he’s been thinking about him a real lot lately, about how they’re alike, and how they’re not, and most importantly, about how they both got the devil in ‘em. 

“But do you have anything to _confess._ This is confession after all.” 

And when Matt asks the priest for forgiveness not for what he has done, but for what he _will do,_ the man’s stunned silence fills _entire libraries._

When he finds his voice the other man manages, “what is it you plan on doing?” 

That night Matt frees the devil for the first time. Tonight it’s sex trafficking, but who knows what’ll come next. God. He thought he knew what he was getting himself into, but he has no fucking idea, does he. 

He does know this: it feels good to do good, and he doesn’t want to stop. Not ever. 

* 

“Didn’t have a date my ass,” Foggy says when he calls Matt the next morning. He hurts. Pretty much everywhere. 

“I swear I didn’t.” 

“Uh huh. Well, come on. Up and at ‘em. We’ve got so much time! And too little do... Actually, strike that. Reverse it.” A long pause, then: “You never laugh at my jokes.” 

“Yeah, you’re right; never.” 

But before meeting the Realtor, they grab coffee first. 

“That is quite the shiner you’re rocking,” Foggy says. He sips his double espresso mocha hazelnut latte or whatever it is. He sounds upset, though it's possible Matt's just imagining it. 

“Just have to be careful,” he says, playing it off like it’s nothing. 

“Uh huh.” 

Foggy saw him just the other night; he knows full well that Matt’s sporting brand new injuries. 

Matt shrugs. “Sometimes… finding clothes isn’t. Ideal.” Even though he hasn’t traveled recently, and he has not, will not, not ever, beat the snot out of some poor soul just for something to wear. And he hates himself for implying so. 

Foggy just responds with a stretched out “Jesus,” like he’s come to some new and entirely distasteful understanding of who Matt even is now. Like, as a person. He shifts uncomfortably under his friend’s scrutiny and as he does, he worries at the leather strap of his cane. It doesn’t really help. 

Foggy checks his watch, says, “ready to rock and roll?” 

And Matt nods. Here it is; time to go. 

* 

They look at a few different places, none of which meets Matt’s approval. 

He finds reasonable excuses for rejecting each of the properties they look at but Foggy’s getting frustrated. Sure, he’s doing his best not to show it, but Matt can tell. 

“I’ll know it,” he reassures after he’d rejected both places they’d toured so far. 

Foggy makes some kind of deep guttural sound at the back of his throat. He thinks Matt can’t hear it, but of course he can. 

He understands Foggy's frustration. He really does, because Foggy has mentioned before how much he hates feeling beholden to Matt’s impressions of the future, hates the fact that he feels trapped within the confines of time as if Matt himself controlled its unfolding. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but he understands it. Understands where Foggy’s coming from. Understands why anyone might think Matt, of all people, would have any kind of say in these things. 

“This is getting ridiculous,” Foggy mutters as they leave the third property of the day. It’s getting to be late afternoon; the sun is setting and he and Foggy and their poor, harried Realtor would like to wrap this all up and go home already. 

“Fog,” he mutters back. “Trust me on this. I know what I’m looking for.” 

“I am trusting the blind man to know what he’s looking for. This is just fantastic.” 

“Hey. Have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?” 

“How would I know?” 

“Yeah. You might have a point there,” because who can keep track of what someone else may or may not know. 

Fourth time’s apparently the charm as they trudge up endless flights of stairs into the office that Matt knows will soon to be the home of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at law. 

He can’t help the goofy grin which threatens to take over his entire face as he enters the conference room, because this is it. The room is empty now, but this is where he hit his head trying to get up from under the table that time he traveled here. 

He turns to Foggy, trying to tamp down his enthusiasm. 

“Yeah?” Foggy asks, and Matt grins widely at him in acknowledgement. 

“Yeah,” he says to his friend. Then to their poor beleaguered Realtor, “we’ll take it.” 

*


	21. Chapter 21

* 

They’ve barely had time to get the office up and running before Foggy’s pal at the 15th Precinct calls him up with a hot tip about a potential new client.

“You gotta stop bribing cops, Fog,” Matt says once he’s disconnected the call and shoved his phone into his pocket. Matt’s referring to the legally dubious _quid pro quo_ thing Foggy and Officer Mahoney have going on, though he’s only half serious about chastising Foggy for it. It’s become something of a running gag; Brett’s mom Bess likes her cigars, and Foggy likes greasing those wheels whenever he can.

But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: as a murder suspect handcuffed to the table in a cramped interrogation room. Matt never would have guessed.

She’s understandably upset and mistrustful of the two young and likely very ambitious lawyers. She’s young and in a vulnerable situation but she isn’t stupid. Knows ‘too good to be true’ when it materializes in front of her in their freshly pressed suits and reassuring smiles.

Matt hopes their strict professionalism will go a long way in assuaging some of her suspicions regarding their motives. (Though to be fair, she would be correct about the ambitious part. After all, they’re not here _entirely_ out of the goodness of their hearts…)

They take their seats, and Foggy pulls out his notepad to begin reviewing the case as they know it so far. Matt contributes by setting his focus on their client. He believes in her innocence wholeheartedly, but he has to leave aside everything he already knows about her. Has to set aside what he remembers of her from their previous encounters; that time he locked himself in his office while she was there; or the time she had come by his place with a big, kind heart, a bouncy helium balloon, and a healthy dose of skepticism about his so-called ‘car accident.’ (Correction: he ignores everything he thinks he knows about her) and focuses on what’s in front of him. In the here and now. Her heartbeat rings so clear and so true he feels justified in placing his faith in her innocence. 

“What’s the catch,” Karen says. She says it very carefully, like she wants to believe their presence here represents the answer to her prayers, but suspects she’s really looking at a deal with the devil.

“There’s no catch here, Ms. Page,” he says. “We can help each other. You need representation and we, frankly need clients.”

“Well, I don’t have any money,” she spits out.

So Matt doubles down by offering up their services pro bono.

Foggy abruptly turns to Karen. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, sounding a bit perturbed by Matt’s offer. Then, “Matthew, a word?”

He and Foggy huddle together in a cramped corner of the tiny interrogation room. Hold their little confab in hushed and hurried whispers. “All right. What’s the deal here. Your crystal ball has something to say about our little murder suspect over here, doesn’t it.”

“You know I don’t have a crystal ball, Foggy.” 

Foggy groans at that. Matt is being deliberately obtuse, and he knows it. He jerks his head at the interrogation table, likely shooting Karen a quick glance, then crowds Matt deeper into the corner. He’s gripping Matt’s bicep a little too tightly, and his hot breath tickles the hair around his ear. If this was anything other than a professional setting, Matt might have been forgiven for thinking things were about to get interesting. He clears his throat and bites at the inside of his cheek. 

Oblivious to how warm it’s gotten, Foggy says, “yeah, but… You kinda do.”

And well, yeah. He’s not wrong. Matt might not have all the details here, but he does know a whole hell of lot more than he’s letting on. 

Even still, he replies with a clipped, “not always.”

Foggy sighs. Lets go of Matt’s arm and smoothes out his shirt from where they were pressed together. Poor Foggy. He’d hoped they’d struck gold with their first client, and here Matt is giving the store away. “Let me guess. It’ll work out?” 

Matt stifles a laugh. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. It is a good start, though.” Foggy nods his head at that and lets out an exaggerated sigh. Resigned to fate whether he likes it or not. 

They retake their seats and Foggy reaches across the table so that he and Karen can shake on it. 

Foggy leans in toward Matt. In an exaggerated stage-whisper he says, “she still looks completely pole-axed, by the way, but I think she’s coming around.” 

“Great.” Matt extends his own hand and adds, “welcome aboard.”

*

The next night Karen is attacked in her jail cell and he and Foggy get their client the hell out of there. The three of them head back to the office to sit down to have a frank discussion about what she knows and who she suspects attacked her. As she unspools her story, he finds his fingers tapping against the underside of the conference table. The story she tells is a good one; a young secretary at a large construction company; a ‘nice guy’ in the legal department she asks out on a date; a dubious-looking pension file. The numbers didn’t seem right, she says. After confronting her boss about it, he had just waved it off as a hypothetical experiment they were playing around with. A “theoretical model,” they called it. Then she goes out for drinks with the guy from legal, and the next thing she knows she’s blacked out and dragged back to her apartment. Where she awakes next to her date’s cold and very bloody body and her own bloodied hand wrapped around an equally bloodied butcher’s knife. 

(“I know it looks bad.”

“Yeah. No kidding.”)

She describes the victim—one Daniel Fisher—as a nice guy with a wife and kids. If he was married, a family man, then why did she ask him out for drinks? They weren't having an affair; he knows that much. Guilt often reads much the same as lying does; flushed face; fidgeting; an elevated heart rate. But Karen has been telling the story freely, without guilt or shame. Like the thought of cheating hadn’t even _occurred_ to her.

So it’s something else then. Karen is a cautious person. Skeptical by nature. Asks a lot a question. He doesn’t think she’s the type to just let things go.

He has a hunch but keeps it to himself. For the time being.

It’s obvious that telling her story dredges up a lot of the pain and emotional turmoil she’s been under in the last day or so. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she says and keeps saying, and it kills him because he knows it’s not. It’s so obviously not. 

She’s crying, and Foggy’s wrapping her up in his arms because he’s big-hearted too.

“I’ll keep you safe, Karen,” Matt says. And he means it. He really, truly does.

Now that Karen has nowhere else to go, Matt invites her to his place for the night. It’s nothing untoward; she needs a safe place to stay, and he wants to get a better sense of who she is and what else she might know. He doesn’t want to make this feel like an interrogation, though, so he offers to order take out. In return she dances around asking him personal questions. He doesn’t mind, and honestly it’s something he’s come to expect. People are very often nakedly curious about his blindness, sometimes to the point of rudeness, but he’s learned to not take it personally. To be self-deprecating about it. It helps put people at ease; to assuage their pity or their self-consciousness, maybe. It’s probably a little bit manipulative, but it’s a good way to break the ice. 

He wants to walk her through the events leading up her being attacked in her cell because there’s one thing he doesn’t quite understand. 

“Why go through all that trouble?” he asks. “Why not just get you out of the way in the first place?” Maybe to frame her? But why?

“They did,” she says, and he suspects she’s misdirecting. “In my cell.”

“Yeah. The second time.”

She found a suspicious file, went to her boss, then started telling other people about it. And not just any other people. ‘A nice guy from legal.’

Karen is suspicious by nature. Inquisitive. Doesn’t let things go. 

She intended on blowing the whistle on the whole thing. Probably still does, actually.

He leans in very close, and opens up his focus. 

“Karen. Do you still have the file?” 

She tells him she wishes she had. That she gave it to her boss when asked, and it hadn’t occurred to her to make a copy. “Guess I’m just not that smart.” 

Huh.

That was the first blatantly dishonest thing she’s said to him.

“Ah, well,” he says, wanting to defuse the tension hanging between them. He actually hadn’t meant to get that intense about it. “It was just a thought.”

“Anyway,” he says as he gets up and walks toward the bedroom. “I’ll make the bed up for you.”

*

Later that night, Karen waits until he’s asleep to sneak out of the apartment.  


Except he’s not sleeping, and he half expected she’d slip away anyway. Probably to recover the file from its secret hiding place. So he grabs his black outfit and follows after her.

And it’s a good thing, too, because inside Karen’s apartment a man holding a knife lunges at her just as Matt bursts through the door. 

A USB drive clatters to the floor, and the man dives after it. Matt goes after the guy, and they go a few rounds before the tussle ends up with them both crashing through a window. The guy gets up, and he’s wielding some kind of long metallic object. A broken piece of scaffolding maybe. A pipe. Guy clocks him over the head with it, and Matt loses focus for a long couple of seconds. 

Then the guy swings at him with his knife, and Matt scrambles for the pipe. Grips it like a baseball bat and clocks _him_ over the head with it. 

“Holy shit,” Karen says after the guy is down for the count.

He didn’t realize she’d been standing that close to the action. 

Matt uncurls the guy’s fingers and snatches the USB drive from his hand. Hold it up toward Karen so she can get a real good look at it before informing her that he’ll make sure it gets in the right hands.

She wants to whistleblow? Then that’s what they’re going to do.

*

Back in his apartment, he drapes his drenched clothes over the shower rod and towels himself off. He doesn’t know where Karen’s gone to, doesn’t know if she’ll sneak back in here like nothing’s happened at all. He doesn’t really care. And despite his aching muscles and his throbbing head, the only thing he wants to do is to crawl into bed and try to see if he can’t catch some sleep. 

He isn’t traveling much these days and is sleeping better than he has in years, and he really, truly hopes the trend continues.

* 

Come morning, Karen sneaks back in carrying two cups of steaming hot coffee.

Matt’s got his head in the refrigerator, and his hand lands on the egg carton just as his front door creaks open.

“Oh,” she says when she sees him pouring vegetable oil into the frying pan. “I didn’t think you’d be up yet. I let myself in, hope that’s okay.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says, smiling. He whisks eggs into the pan. “Care for some?”

“Oh,” she says again. “I didn’t know you could,” then under her breath, “that’s stupid, of course he can.” She huffs out a small laugh. “I mean, yes! I would love some scrambled eggs. Thank you. I. I brought coffee? I wasn't sure how you took it so I guessed? Hope that’s okay.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” he says. “Really, it's great.” He gestures toward the tiny kitchen table. “Please.” Have a seat. He continues stirring the eggs then readies a pair of plates. “So,” he starts. He wants to broach this as carefully as possible. “I was surprised to wake up to an empty apartment this morning.” He plates the eggs and approaches the table slowly, every step and every movement careful and deliberate.

“Oh, let me, um.” She stands and takes one of the plates from him. With his now free left hand, he feels for the back of his chair before setting down his own plate and takes a seat. “Yeah. Um.” She’s going to lie to him; he’s sure of it. “I just needed…” She steels herself and changes tack.“I need to tell you something.”

“The file,” he says. He makes it sound like a question, like he doesn’t already know how this goes.

“Yeah, actually,” she says, and she recounts the events of the night before; the file, the man with the knife, and the guy in the mask who materialized from out of nowhere. He saved her ass and promised to help her expose the bastards who did this to her.

“Well,” he says. “Sounds like you had a more exciting night than I did.” He’s suddenly very aware of the bump on his head, has to actively keep himself from feeling for it. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

They finish breakfast, and Karen offers to wash the dishes. “It’s the least I can do,” she explains.

So he calls Foggy.

“Morning, Sunshine. I trust babysitting duties went without a hitch.”

Oh right. _Babysitting._ He forgot that was how Foggy put it. “If I recall correctly, _you_ were the one who said it was inappropriate to put it that way.” Foggy barks out a laugh at that. Then Matt adds, “that was last night, wasn’t it.”

“Sure was,” he says, still laughing. “How’s your head, by the way.”

Ice cold panic floods his veins. There’s no way Foggy knows he was in a fight last night. He can’t possibly know. “My head?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, says it like Matt’s the world’s largest idiot. “You, smacking your noggin under the conference table?"

“Oh right!” he says, rubbing at the sore spot on the top of his head. “God. That was a _long_ time ago.”

“Your definition of ‘a long time ago,’ and my definition of ‘a long time ago’ are two completely different things, buddy.”

“Sometimes that is true,” he says through a wide smile. “Listen. We’ll see you in a little bit, okay? We’re just finishing up breakfast over here. And there’s been a development. It’s nothing huge, but. Who knows. Might be of help.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good. See you guys soon.”

“So,” he says as he pockets his phone. Karen’s finished drying the plates and silverware and is now on to scrubbing out the baked on egg still stuck on the frying pan. “You’re welcome to stay here if you'd like, or you can come with me to the office. Or if you have somewhere else you need to go, but Karen. I would really like for you to stay close if at all possible. For all we know someone could come after you again.” 

“You’re sweet,” she says, and Matt smiles at her. “But I couldn’t… you’ve done so much already and…”

“Leave the dishes, I’ll finish them later.”

“Oh, no, I’ll just… there’s not a lot left and I--.”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Come to the office. We can keep you safe. I promise. I do have to warn you though: Foggy likes an well-prepared meal as much as the next person, but he cannot cook for shit.” She very generously laughs at that. “So don’t let him try to convince you otherwise.”

“Okay,” she says, still laughing. “I think I can manage that. And who knows. Maybe I’ll cook for you guys some time.”

“I look forward to it, Ms. Page.”

*

Later that night, Karen is true to her word and prepares them an old-fashioned virtue-infused lasagna. She says it’s old family tradition meant for a future spouse, and as they eat it, Foggy kicks him in the shin.

 

It’s nice. The three of them. Of course it won’t last, but he intends on enjoying it all the same. Learn to life in the moment and all that.

Though he can’t help the worry twisting away in his gut. The collision is imminent; time to brace for impact.

But this is how Karen Page enters their lives: with the offer to help them out around the office in exchange for taking up her case. Matt never would have guessed.

*


	22. Chapter 22

*

The wall behind him scapes against his back, but he doesn’t push away from it. Instead, he presses his body further into it, lets the cool roughness of the uneven brickwork dig deeper into the back of the damp clothing he had stolen from a poor woman’s clothesline. He had crouched behind the building’s large HVAC unit and waited until she had disappeared back inside. Then he sprang into action, pulling down whatever clothes his hands landed on first. A thin t-shirt, a pair of boardshorts. Both items were entirely too small for him and still damp and heavy from the wash. Still, finding wet clothes was always better than not finding any at all. “Thanks for these,” he muttered to the woman as she moved around inside the building’s shared laundry room. “And sorry.”

Right now he’s standing on the sidewalk about a half a mile north of where it happens, and he can hear the plaintive whine of emergency vehicles as they rush toward the scene. It’s an odd feeling knowing those sirens are flying through the busy city streets specifically for him.

Just like every other time he’s been dropped off here, the deep instinctual urge to run towards the scene so he can go to his dad and touch him, talk to him, hear him is so overwhelming he wants to cry. And just like every other time he’s been here, he cannot move his feet no matter how much he wants to. They may as well be cemented into the sidewalk for as much as he’s able to move them. The sidewalk is harsh and uncomfortable on his bare feet, but they aren’t going anywhere. Not for a good long while.

“Do you know what’s happening?” a woman asks him. Her voice is rich and warm and definitely not from around here. A tourist, maybe. She didn’t startle him, but he definitely should have noticed her presence sooner. He’s in full Time Travel Survival Mode here, and he needs to stay on his toes. It doesn’t matter if this particular moment in time is as familiar to him as the backs of his hands, he cannot afford to get so caught up in the spiralling vortex of his own thoughts and emotions that he completely misses what goes on around him. 

Though maybe it isn’t too surprising he hadn’t noticed her. Most people move through their lives as walking clouds of scents and smells; there are shampoos and hair dyes and perfumes and colognes. Antiperspirants and deodorants and makeup. People douse themselves in all manner of grooming products in their day to day lives. Matt included. (Except for when he’s traveling of course.)

But not this woman. There isn’t a single molecule of artificial fragrance on or about her person. No jewelry either now that he’s paying attention. 

It’s an intriguing detail, but ultimately an unimportant one. And honestly none of his damn business.

He focuses on his surroundings to get a better sense of what might have prompted her question, and he nods to himself when he notices a man standing in the middle of the street. Probably a detail cop redirecting traffic. Right. The street had been closed off. He remembers that now.

“I uh. Yeah,” he says. He moistens his lips. “There was an accident? A car accident. Well, it was a truck. Hit a kid.” He gestures vaguely in the direction of where it’s all unfolding, knowing full well that she wouldn’t be able to see it from here. They’re standing approximately ten blocks north of the accident site, though for him it may as well be a thousand miles away. 

This was all a very long time ago. The wounds have all closed, the scars have all healed. That he’s forced to relive this one particular moment again and again is beside the point. 

She shifts on her feet, and he expects she’ll ask him how he knows all this, but she never does. After all, the sirens are close enough now that she should be able to hear them, too.

What _he_ hears is his dad’s panicked voice calling out his name as he picks his way through the chaos. Angry, helpless tears prick at his eyes, so he says, “kid’ll be…” A hard swallow. “I mean, I’m sure he’ll be okay.”

He’s pretty sure he’s not actually okay. 

“Well, I was hoping I’d get to see _something_ exciting during my stay in New York,” she says. 

“But maybe not that kind of excitement.” 

“Perhaps not,” she says dismissively. Then she turns and starts walking toward the accident site. Maybe to see the excitement after all. 

Something sharp and ugly pulls at his gut at the thought of his accident as nothing more than someone else’s _entertainment_. Something exciting to watch while on vacation.

He knows, realistically, that accidents such as his will draw a crowd. Most people have a natural sense of morbid curiosity, and he has to remind himself that this isn’t actually about him. 

He can’t take this sort of thing personally. Besides, how is this woman--how is anyone--supposed to know that he and the boy currently knocked to the ground and writhing in pain from having toxic goo spilled on his face are one in the same. There aren’t many who would make that leap.

He wipes away hot, viscous tears, folds his arms protectively over his stomach, and waits until he’s once again alone.

And as the woman leaves him, as her feet slap against the hard surface of the sidewalk, Matt finds himself vaguely wondering just what kind of tourist explores the city barefoot. Whether they’ve come to gawk at little boys struck by moving vehicles or otherwise.

*

He’s deposited back in the present in the middle of Foggy’s living room. 

It’s not a graceful landing. He crashes somewhere near Foggy’s glass and metal coffee table, legs carelessly sprawled out underneath him. He moves just the wrong way, and bangs his right ankle into one of the coffee table’s cold metal legs hard enough to shift it half an inch out of place. An empty glass topples over like a felled tree, then rolls off the table and falls to the hardwood floor where it continues on for another several feet. At least it didn’t shatter upon impact. Foggy probably wouldn’t appreciate having to sweep up shards of glass on top of everything else. Matt flushes with guilt, so he scrambles after the runaway glass and sets it back on the table.

Still sitting on the floor, Matt rubs at his bare ankle. It’s a little tender to the touch and he expects the injured spot will blossom into a nice, angry bruise.

At least he’s able to bear weight on it without it yelling at him. It’s stiff and uncomfortable, but he doesn’t have to favor it as he makes his way to Foggy’s couch.

“What’s all the racket out there,” Foggy complains. Right on cue. Now framed in the doorway of his bedroom, he says, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

He offers his friend an apologetic expression. “Sorry for waking you,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah,” Foggy grumbles, but when he flips on the light switch and sees Matt sitting on his couch, he lets out a soft gasp of surprise and mutters out a quiet, “Holy hell.” 

Which confuses the shit out of Matt. He doesn’t have any new injuries, save for the ankle. And surely Foggy’s not reacting to his nudity. He’s been through this often enough; he knows how this goes. 

“Fog?” Matt tries.

He seems to startle at Matt’s voice. Wipes sweaty palms on his pajama bottoms and says just a little too emphatically, “I will go and get you some clothes. Be Are Be.”

Matt waits for Foggy to return with something for him to wear, awkwardly pooling his hands in his lap as he does.

When he emerges again from the bedroom, Foggy sets down a folded pair of flannel pajamas on the couch cushion beside him. “At you nine o’clock,” he says and gingerly sits down, careful to leave plenty of space between them as Matt dresses.

“Coming from anywhere exciting?”

Matt sighs through his nose and finishes buttoning the pajama top. “Yeah,” he says, shoulders slumping a little. “The… you know.” He flaps a hand. “The accident.” 

“Oh, man,” Foggy says. “I’m sorry to hear that, dude, I really am.”

“Nah,” he says. Tries to say it lightly, but he’s not sure how convincing it is. “It’s… don’t worry about it. I’ve been there so many times now it’s practically a second home.”

He tries for a small laugh to go along with a big, self-deprecating smile, but he doesn’t think it works. Foggy just seems sad.

“Foggy, I--” _I don’t need your pity._ He absently worries at the button on his shirt cuff and offers his friend a lopsided smile.

He doesn’t really want to get into this now. His accident and everything surrounding it is too heavy a topic of conversation for this time of night. Thankfully though, he and Foggy seem to be on the same wavelength about that. Foggy pushes himself off the couch with a heavy groan. “Sorry, pal, but beauty sleep calls.” He gestures to where Matt is sitting. “Couch is yours though, if you want it.”

“Yeah, man. Thanks. See ya in the morning.”

*

They don’t stay at Foggy’s place long come morning. Instead, Foggy walks Matt home, and while Matt’s in the shower, Foggy makes himself at home by putting on a pot of coffee.

“What are you gonna tell Karen,” Foggy says after Matt’s emerged from the bathroom. He’s dressed and ready to. Teeth brushed. Hair combed. Just has to duck into the bedroom to grab his wallet, his phone, his tactile watch. 

“Tell her what,” he says from his bedroom doorway. Foggy’s now sitting at his tiny kitchen table, sipping over-sugared coffee. He scrunches up his face in disapproval, but keeps any comments to himself.

At least Foggy’s a well-mannered, considerate mooch and cleaned the pot out after he was done with it. 

Trying to give Foggy the hint to hurry it along, Matt makes his way over to the hallway to collect his briefcase, his keys, his cane. Pats at his shirt pocket to make sure his glasses are there, and slips them on. All set, ready to go. Just waiting on Foggy.

“Where do you want me leave this.”

“The coffee mug? Just set it by the sink. I’ll take care of it later.”

“Sure thing,” Foggy says from the kitchen. Matt hears the ceramic mug hit the inside of the metal sink, and a second later, the rush of running water from the faucet. He swallows a smile as he waits for his friend to finish rinsing the mug out for him. “I mean, what are you going to tell her about your whole deal,” Foggy adds.

“My ‘deal,’” he quotes. “I don’t know, Foggy.” Foggy makes his way down the hallway now, and Matt opens the door and steps aside to let Foggy through first. “I don’t know. Probably won’t tell her anything. Frankly, I don’t see how it’s any of her business.”

He shuts the door behind himself and they head for the stairs. “Yeah,” Foggy says. “I totally hear you on that. But. This isn’t the kind of thing you can just hide from people you work with, you know? I mean, what if you have an episode right there in the office. What if I’m not around when you do?” He asks that last question like the very idea of it keeps him up at night. 

“Yeah, that’s... likely. I agree. But if… or when it does happen, we will deal with it accordingly, all right?”

“No, not all right! Take it from me, Matt. Watching someone literally disappear right in front of you is weird, and honestly? Kind of traumatic.”

“Well, you let me know when you come up with a better idea,” he says, though what he really means is _‘I am done having this discussion.’_

Under his breath, Foggy mutters, “but what the hell do I know.” Thankfully Foggy drops the subject as they continue on toward the office and instead spends the rest of the walk enthusiastically comparing these early days of the law offices of Nelson and Murdock to opening night of a brand new Broadway show.

“And this,” Foggy says, gesturing grandly as if to encompass the entire city of New York, “is our big debut. You ready?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

*

“Good morning, guys,” Karen says once they arrive at the office. Matt sets his cane in its usual spot by the door and goes to stand next to Foggy and Karen a few feet in front of Karen’s desk. “Would you guys like some coffee? I made a fresh pot.”

“None for Foggy,” Matt says, elbowing Foggy in the ribs. “He’s had plenty.”

“It was one cup, Murdock. Seriously. Lighten up.”

He turns to Karen and gives her a quick nod and a serious expression. _My rule stands_ , it means, and she seems unsure how seriously she should take that. Tentatively she says, “well... how ‘bout you, Matt? Can I get you some coffee?”

Before he has the chance to answer, Foggy lets out low whistle. “Man,” he says. “Have you been busy around here, or what. Gotta say, it looks good. I mean, it looks really good. This must’ve taken hours.”

“Oh,” she says, brushing Foggy off with a cheerful sort of casualness. Matt doesn’t buy it at all. “Just wanted to keep busy, you know.”

“Well, it looks amazing.” Turning to Matt, Foggy says, “I am not kidding, dude. The place is friggen immaculate. Not a single moving box or stray paper to be found!”

“Wait. Was it messy in here?” he deadpans.

“Nope!” Foggy cheerfully replies. “Forget I said anything.” 

Karen then brushes her hand against Matt’s arm and quickly pulls it away again to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Did I tell you guys I saw the guy in the mask again?”

Matt stiffens. “Uh. You what?” While it’s true he has been active lately, he hasn’t encountered Karen in that context since that first night in the rain, so he has no idea what she’s talking about. He clears his throat and as the conversation unfolds, he keeps his expression as neutral as possible. 

“Don’t tell me you’re stalking the guy now,” Foggy admonishes. “Seriously, Page. He’s a few french fries short of a picnic. What’re you trying to do, get the guy’s autograph? You should be staying away from that nut job, not actively hunting him down!”

“It’s not like that!” she says. “And he isn’t dangerous, Foggy. The guy saved my life, remember? Anyway. It’s not like I went out of my way to see him or anything, I just happened to catch him running across a rooftop near my apartment. That’s all.”

“Well, as long as you’re okay,” Matt says. He hopes his bland, detached expression of sympathy and concern will be enough to steer the conversation away from… himself. It mostly works.

“What Matt said,” Foggy agrees. “Take care of yourself, Page, we kinda need you around here.”

Heat pools at Karen’s cheeks and Foggy takes that as his cue to head to his office. Once he’s there he yells out, “you two! Just because we have no clients, doesn’t mean there’s no work to do!”

Foggy’s tone is playful though, and Karen laughs nervously, unsure how to take it. He has to remind himself that she’s still getting to know them. So Matt explains, “Foggy and I have been talking about doing this for a long time.” He shrugs. “We are, to quote my good friend Mr. Nelson, ‘waiting in the wings before the curtain rises.’ And... he’s a little excited.”

She makes a small ‘aw,’ sound at that, seemingly charmed by Matt and Foggy’s dream made reality. 

“Well,” he says. “Thanks for coming in and straightening up. I would tell you it looks great, but…” 

She pats him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Matt.” Then: “I’ll go and get you that coffee.”

 

*  
It isn’t long before he travels again. Things have been so quiet for so long now, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to have his life interrupted like this. It’s frustrating, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. This is his life, after all.

He is surprised when he realizes he’s ended up behind the bushes not far from where he and Foggy shared a dorm room all those years ago. 

It’s funny being back here now. He knows it was a long time ago, and he can feel the weight of the intervening years on his body and in his soul, but it feels fresh in his memory still. He almost can’t believe how long it’s been. 

He’s changed so much since he was that awkward college kid; he’s grown so much that he suspects he’s a completely different person now. 

No, not a different person. Just someone who has grown more into himself. He’s probably still not there yet; probably still has a lot of growing left to do.

He doesn’t really know.

What he does know is how desperately he needs to find cover and get out of the pouring rain. 

He tries warming himself by vigorously rubbing his arms and hands, and thinks back to his time here. He’s pretty sure there was a window somewhere nearby that he’d used to use to slip into the building; it leads into one of the administration offices, if he remembered correctly. Then from there he would only have a few hallways and a flight of stairs to contend with.

Sure enough, when he gets to the window, he finds it open a crack, and he’s able to pry it open without much effort. He lands on his injured foot wrong, it bends and rolls awkwardly and his already swollen ankle screams in protest. 

He swears under his breath but he has to push aside the brief explosion of pain to take in his surroundings. No suspiciously convenient bags of clothes left lying around for him this time around. Which is probably for the best. That’s a puzzle he still hasn’t managed to crack. 

Once he’s out in the hallway, he keeps low to the wall, ducking into doorways and hiding around corners whenever he hears anyone approaching. 

Thankfully he’s gotten pretty good at being stealthy in his old age, and he makes it to his former dorm room without incident. Well, without _much_ incident. He does manage step wrong on his injured foot, and he ends up colliding into the wall outside the dorm room with a loud thud. Great. Now they _both_ know he’s out here. He steels himself for the mess he’s about to step into and slowly opens the door. It creaks on its hinges and Foggy, feeling put out by the intrusion sternly says, “hey, pal. You’ve got the wrong,” and he trails off when he takes in the full view of a soaking wet Matt slamming the door behind him and pressing his body firmly against it. “Room,” he finishes helplessly.

Matt probably looks like a drown rat, and his ankle is throbbing, and his present self is holding a folded set of clothes out for him.

“I am so sorry,” Matt says as he grabs the proffered clothing, because he would have avoided this whole thing if he could have. But. He pulls the shirt down over his head, and it sticks uncomfortably to his wet body. “I’m cold and wet and--” he’s about to mention his swollen ankle too, when present Matt interrupts him.

“Let me guess. Behind the bushes?”

“Yeah,” he says with a huff through the nose. “Every damn time.”

“What the hell was in that beer,” Foggy mutters. He shakes the empty can around in his hand as if he’ll find the answer floating around in there. Poor Foggy. He sounds absolutely shell shocked.

“You aren’t hallucinating,” Matt says. He’s trying to shimmy into a pair of his old jeans, but he’s having a tough time of it; they bunch up at the thighs and when he finally does manage to pull them over his hips, he can’t seem to zip up the fly. He makes a face because he loved these jeans when he was in school. He practically lived in them. Now it seems he’s outgrown them.

“So how should we do this,” Present Matt says, just as Foggy’s freaking out about the fact that the two Matts sound exactly the same.

“You can do it next time,” he deadpans, slapping his younger self on the arm. _You know, when you’re me._

Foggy lets himself fall onto his bed and very slowly says, “you never told me you had a brother.” He’s so desperate for a rational explanation for all this, and Matt feels like a complete asshole. He remembers how hard this was on Foggy. How scared Foggy was of him. 

Foggy had referred to this moment recently as ‘weird and traumatic.’ Clearly the memory of seeing Matt vanish into thin air that first time never truly left him.

His younger self is curled in on himself, bracing himself against the overwhelming pain he experiences right before he travels. It’s gotten better as he’s gotten older, easier. The pain less intense, but he still vividly remembers how awful this was.

“Jesus, now?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” And he really, truly is. 

Present Matt is writhing on the floor, trying to hold it together. He’s just making it worse for himself, but he knows he won’t listen to anything he has to say. Matt was such a stubborn asshole back then. Still is, if he’s honest with himself.

He isn’t just making it worse for himself, he’s making it worse for Foggy, too. He’s panicking badly and screaming Matt’s name. Over and over and over. 

“What the fuck is happening! Matt! Maaaatt!!”

“I am not going anywhere, Foggy, you have to believe me. Just. Let me explain everything, okay? Will you let me do that?” And he’s groaning and sobbing from the pain of it, and Matt wants to say to him, ‘stop talking, you idiot. Just let go. It’s going to be fine!’

“Oh my God, Matt!!” And Foggy’s crying, and both Matts are crying, and then there’s a loud sucking noise like all the air has been let out of the room. A person-shaped arrangement of clothes lies perfectly flat against the floor, as if Matt’s body had been beamed right out of them by some unknown alien force.

Foggy’s down on the carpet in an instant, gathering up younger Matt’s clothes and holding them tight against his body. “What the fuck did you do to him!”

Foggy radiates nothing but pure anger and fear and overwhelming grief. He jerks his arm back and chucks the clothes at Matt like an angry, pointed accusation. Matt doesn’t try to catch them or otherwise move out of the way. He just stands there, letting them hit him square in the chest. Like an admission of guilt. They slide gracelessly off his body and pool loosely at his bare feet. Matt takes a small step forward, and now both he and the pile of clothes inhabit the space his younger self had just vacated.

Matt puts his hands up, placating. “Foggy,” he tries.

“NO!” Foggy shouts. His voice breaks and his face is worryingly warm and he’s crying so hard he’s hiccuping after every word. “Don’t you dare come near me! You. You killed my friend!”

In another context this might even be funny.

“I didn’t--” He pauses so he can take in a deep breath. So he can ground himself. 

“Listen, Foggy. I know watching that was…” he can’t help the sad smile that forms at his lips. “Upsetting. You’ve told me it was, and I didn’t take you seriously enough. I am really sorry for that.”

“What the hell does that mean?” 

“Never mind. Don’t worry about it, I--”

“What happened to Matt?” Foggy’s gulping in breaths again, but at least he’s trying to calm himself. Trying to make sense of the weirdness happening right now in his dorm room.

“I’m. I’m uh. I’m right here. Look, I’m not trying to be funny with you, Foggy. You really did watch me vanish, but. I’m… also here.”

Foggy’s quiet for a long time, but his heart beat is steady, and his breathing has mostly evened out. He’s coming around, Matt thinks.

“You’re staring at me right now, aren’t you.”

“You’re blind,” Foggy blurts out, like he’s just now realizing it.

And Matt can’t help but to laugh at that. “The lack of eye contact gives it away. Or so I’ve been told.”

“You’re really Matt?” Foggy says, just as Matt’s saying, “I’m going to sit down now. My bed’s still over there, right?” He gestures toward his old bed, knowing perfectly well how it’s situated within the room. Though it seems smaller than he remembers. Everything in here does. Not only that, but the walls and the furniture and everything inside the room feel closer together than he would have guessed if he had to go by memory alone. “It has been a long time since I’ve been here.” He feels his way over to his old bed, and Foggy takes that as his cue to do the same.

Foggy feels very far away; there is a wide gulf between the two them, between the two beds. 

“So,” he starts. His legs hang over the edge of the bed, and he’s leaning forward, resting his arms across his knees. “I’m a time traveler? I’m from... the future. I know that sounds dramatic, and kind of ridiculous, but it’s also the truth.”

Foggy’s breathing goes shallow and panicky again. Tripping all over his words, he says, “You're shitting me. The fu-- For real? So Matt is… he really is--? And I just witnessed a paradox?! Because the same atoms can’t exist in the same space at the same time, or whatever, so that’s what caused him to--!”

“No, no,” Matt interrupts. “Foggy, breath. It’s nothing like that, okay? I didn’t… I didn’t _annihilate_ myself. If it worked that way, both versions of me would have been destroyed, don’t you think?”

“Oh my God, that can happen?”

“I don’t think it can? I’ve never actually given it that much thought.”

“You don’t _know?_ ”

He shrugs, his shoulders going high around his ears. “I’m a lawyer, Fog, not a theoretical physicist.”

Foggy barks out a high, deranged sounding laugh at that. Like he thinks he’s losing his mind.

“Wait, you actually are a--. No, never mind that. We need to talk about what the hell happened to Matt. I mean, you touched him. You _touched_ him, Dude-Who-Looks-Like-a-Slightly-Older-Matt. Then he was writhing in agony on the friggen floor and then he just _evaporated_ right in front of me!”

“Yeah, but. It’s not because I touched…” Matt coughs. He’s trying not to confuse Foggy with here with his usual pronoun usage. “I can exist in the same space more than once. And I do have my own thoughts on how that’s possible, but. That’s a conversation for another time.

“Just. I am real sorry it played out this way, Foggy. I really am, but it was just… it was just _spectacularly_ bad timing. A coincidence. That’s all.” 

“ _‘Bad timing’_? I’m supposed to believe that?”

He wants to throw his hands up and say ‘believe what you want. I don’t care.’ But that wouldn’t be very helpful here. He needs to tread carefully; he has to remind himself that while Foggy is listening calmly as Matt explains the weirdness of the situation, he is still upset. And scared about what might have happened to his friend. His well being. Matt just needs to get through this delicate situation by stepping on as few landmines as he can possibly manage.

“I can tell you about where I went,” he says, gesturing at the pile of clothes on the floor. “If you want.”

“You can do that? That’s not gonna… do anything bad?”

“You watch too many movies, Fog.”

“Hey.”

“No, It’s fine. I can. I tell you stuff all the time, actually.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You know how I told you I’m a lawyer? Well actually we both are, and we--”

“No, stop!” Foggy says. He sounds panicky suddenly. Scared of what Matt might reveal. “I actually don’t want to know.”

“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, no I get it. That’s… Yeah.” He stands and says, “are my glasses still on the floor?” 

“Uh. yeah. Hold a sec.” Foggy goes over to Matt’s pile of clothes and picks up the pair of glasses left behind there. He hesitates before bringing them over to Matt. 

“Here you go,” he says, placing them in Matt’s palm. He had grabbed Matt’s wrist before setting them there, and the significance of that is not lost on him.

“Thanks, Fog,” he says as he slips them on. “I’m just. I’m gonna go and get out of your hair.”

“You’re really gonna take Matt’s glasses?”

“Well, they are mine.” He pats at the nightstand next to his bed. Grabs his wallet. Leaves the phone where it is. 

“I’m not sure that isn’t theft,” Foggy says. 

“Can’t steal from yourself,” he says. Then he walks over to the door to slip on his old pair of sneakers and collect his cane. “Right where I left it,” he deadpans. 

“Hey, dude,” Foggy says as Matt opens the door. He huffs out a small laugh because Foggy still can’t bring himself to call him by his name. “If you really are Matt, then just how did you get so shredded?”

He really does laugh at that. “I’ll talk to you soon, Fog.” And shuts the door behind him.

After that, he decides to head to the library. Maybe if it isn’t too busy, he can put his head down for a little while before he’s sent back to the present.

A young woman behind the check-out desk greets him with a warm hello. Then apologetically she says, “I know you requested a couple books in Braille, but they aren't in yet. Sorry.”

“Oh. No, that’s okay. I'm not looking for them today. Um, maybe you can tell me if there are any seats available?”

“Yeah, of course. There’s a row of empty carrels along the wall to your left. About ten o’clock?”

“Great,” he says. “Thanks.”

He finds a spot easily enough, and folds up his cane before setting it on the table. He pulls the chair out, and the front legs drag something across the thin carpet. He reaches down to the floor and is surprised when his hand lands on soft, cool fabric. He lifts it up to his nose. It’s a woman’s blouse. He doesn’t recognize the perfume still lingering on it. Under the desk he also finds a long silk skirt and a pair of high heels. He doesn’t know anything about women’s clothing, but if he had to guess, he would say these were expensive, fashionable pieces. They feel well made and of high-quality material. The shoes especially. They feel stiff. Brand new. Worn only once or twice, but no more than that. 

Why would anyone…

This is a quiet part of the library, and what other students get up to is none of his business. He gathers up the clothes and heads back to the front desk.

“Lost and Found,” he says to the woman still at the desk.

“Oh,” she says. “A whole outfit. Okay.” Then she’s writing something down on an index card. Probably cataloging the items. “You found these all together?” He nods, so she starts placing the clothes into a stiff paper grocery bag. 

Surprised, Matt asks, “what’s with the bag? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“It's to prevent the spread of bedbugs,” she says with a shrug. “Apparently there was a big outbreak a few years ago, so now we keep any Lost and Found items in bags instead of leaving them all piled in a box somewhere. Makes sense, I guess.”

“Yeah,” he says absently. Then to the woman, “thanks.”

“Sure, no problem,” she says as Matt makes his way back to his carrel to rest his head until he's brought back home.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading <3
> 
> find me on tumblr: [a-silver-sun.tumblr.com](https://a-silver-sun.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> I meant to make this note much sooner, but please feel free to give me a shout if you find anything too confusing, or if something plain doesn't make sense. Or if you spot any mistakes, or inconsistencies. I like to think I am crafting this as carefully as possible, but sometimes mistakes slip through. 
> 
> Thanks again. <3


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